Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Salad Bed

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The salad bed is thriving.  Lettuces, onions, radishes are enjoying the cooler weather – so am I.  Everything was fertilized this past weekend.  Irrigation occurs about every other day.  It’s so nice not to have to get up at dark:30 and irrigate.  I was getting out there and misting everything around 5:30.  Now an occasional watering using the drip line does the trick.

I’m harvesting the lettuce by pulling the lowest leaves as needed and allowing the rest of the plant to remain and grow.  So far so good.  As the onions are thinned they are chopped and used like chives.  Since it freezes around here in December, this bed will be covered by a covered wagon type device with the hope that the lettuce and company will continue to provide salad throughout the winter.

A head of lettuce in the grocery store is ~$2.  A packet of seeds cost slightly more at ~$2.50.  Each packet contains ~250 seeds.  At $0.01 a head for home grown nutritious lettuce it’s well worth growing your own.  Sure there’s the costs of water, fertilizer, and the set up of your garden but the exercise, convenience, and freshness of the produce just might be…priceless.

3 comments:

Far Side of Fifty said...

You have salad! Wonderful and healthy for you too..we are going into the dark of winter..no homegrown anything here til June:)

And Sow My Garden Grows said...

Have to update my blog at some point! My lettuce is coming in great too - super easy to grow and feeds us for weeks. Yours looks fabulous! I'm ready for a salad now :)

Unknown said...

It looks just beautiful. I'm jealous!