Forsythkid's Blog » Lettuce

Growing fresh lettuce in the dead of winter! Am I crazy?

forsythkid — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 23:07:31 +0000

Yes, I am but that’s a story for another time. To check out this particular bit of craziness, please click here!

The graph at left represents the actual temperatures for the week ending December the 20th, 2009. Note that while it got pretty cold, I was still able to enjoy great tasting romaine lettuce even in the dead of winter here in southwest Missouri.

If you haven’t tried building and using a cold frame, then you are missing out. They can extend your growing season well in the the fall and then again in the very early spring.

For my article on factors that affect growth in a cold frame, please click here.

Making Your Salad Dollar Stretch!

forsythkid — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:46:48 +0000

A recent visit to the local grocery store in my town of Forsyth, Missouri convinced me more than ever that many of us should consider planting a small garden. Lettuce was well over a dollar a head, celery was pushing two dollars and you don’t even want to here about the cost of bell peppers! Yet, I’ve found a way to make these items really stretch.

I will admit that I am a salad junkie! Have been for as long as I can remember and it’s not unusual for me to have a salad with most every meal. But, since economic times have gone down hill and what with the job market all but non-existent, I’ve really had to watch my spending patterns. Trying to save is most felt when I shop for food these days. Not so long ago, a can of corn was under fifty cents. Now you can spend over a dollar. Vegetables were downright cheap and I can remember friends asking me why I even bothered to garden. I would always come back with the fact that my produce was at least pesticide free. Now, in 2010, I don’t have to use that excuse any longer.

So, how do I save money? If you look closely at the picture for this blog you will see that I have a pretty happy salad going here. There’s lettuce, romaine, parsley, celery, radishes, green onion and even a little bit of ham mixed with leftover peas going on in this dish. Because about half the ingredients came from my garden, the cost of this great diet meal is under a quarter! (At my last visit to a restaurant a small dinner salad was $2.50). Also, by creatively using leftovers from other meals, I am making use of ever bit of purchased food while enjoying the benefits of fresh produce from the garden. Now that’s a great way to save. You can see more on gardening in my blog ‘DanO’s Garden‘.

So, what’s happening in the garden?

forsythkid — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:15:41 +0000

After a cold night down here in southwestern Missouri, where the temperatures dipped down into the thirties overnight, I have to say that the following day was a gem. That seems to be the modis operandi in spring. A really brutal day of rain and cold is followed by warmth and fair skies. April can be like that. The good news is that cold weather crops like broccoli and romaine lettuce really love this kind of wacky treatment. Add radishes and onion sets to that also. I had the great pleasure of harvesting my very first radish today. It was a Cherry Belle radish and after cutting off the top and adding a little salt I can tell you that the crunchy, salty taste is everything that is good about spring to me.

So, as of this date (April 10^th) in the year 2010, I have the following crops growing in my two four by eight foot raised beds; Little Caesar romaine lettuce, Cherry Belle radishes, white onion sets, bush beans, Kennebec potatoes, spinach and parsley. Also, in growing trays I have some plants grown from seed including; Thai Hot peppers, Bananarama peppers, more Little Caesar romaine lettuce and a just seeded tray containing Early Girl and Brandywine tomatoes. Wow! I can hardly wait for those beauties. I have a special place in my heart for freshly grown tomatoes. One of the greatest pleasures of gardening in the spring is the harvests you realize in the summer.

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One plant I am tracking this year are the seeds of Great Northern Beans I sowed from a package I purchased at a local store. I have planted them in a couple of spots and will be most interested in seeing if I can produce some dried beans at the end of the growing cycle. I am intrigued as to what kind of production I will realize per plant. Bean, if you have followed some of my earlier blogs are one of just two veggies that can provide all the essential amino acids we need to survive. The other is rice. Combine these two and you have a combination that can allow for survival during hard times. Not that I’m really worried that the United States is headed for dark times. I really believe that our 121 trillion dollar debt will be repaid (with interest) and that everyone will greatly prosper in the years ahead…I also believe firmly in the possibility of pigs flying.

You can see more on gardening in my blog ‘DanO’s Garden‘.

The Actual Cost of Vegetables at the Store

forsythkid — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:01:11 +0000

I though it might be interesting to take a look at the actual cost of certain vegetables I pay for at the grocery store. I was amazed to find that no one seems to be tracking this sort of stuff. At least I couldn’t find very much on the internet.

So, I’ve elected to try and track what I’m paying at a local chain store for select items. The list will include the following; Broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, peppers, green beans and Bell peppers. I think this list is representative of some of the stuff I like to grow in the garden each year.

My purpose in doing this is to provide a record of produce costs and to see where I want to concentrate my growing efforts. I’d like to grow veggies that cost a lot and perhaps save a few bucks in the process. I’ll try and append monthly updates to this blog over the course of a few months to get a feel for the average cost of each item in the list.

All costs will be expressed both in the unit in which they were purchased (a bag of potatoes) and in a cost per pound. So, a head of lettuce that might go for $1.39 per head will be also expressed in its true weight. This will allow an ‘Apples to Apples’ comparison as it were. Finally, wherever possible, I plan to buy the produce that is packaged in the cheapest manner. This means buying a 5 pound bag of potatoes rather than each one individually. The only cravat is that I will keep the proportions consistent with what an average family would purchase. In other words, I’ll confine myself to buying a head of lettuce as opposed to a crate of lettuce just to try and save some money. (Anyways that much lettuce would just rot away before I could eat it all).

So, for the beginning of the month of March, 2010, this is what I paid for vegetables at a chain store in southwest Missouri. If, anyone in another part of the country wants to post their costs in the comment section please feel free.

I will followup with another report this coming fall to compare prices.

Here is a followup done on May 11th.

Another update:

Here is an update taken on October the 4th 2010.

I posted another update, of sorts, comparing prices between Aug 2010 and 2011 here! A whopping 21% increase!

Fresh Romaine in December from My Cold Frame

forsythkid — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:44:17 +0000

While it might be cold outside, my mini cold frames are doing great. There have recently been a few nights when the temperatures outside have plunged into the teens! But witness (picture at right) how healthy the romaine lettuce is that was harvested today. The wonderful thing about having a cold frame is the way in which lettuce that was started from seed in early September is now grown but in a kind of suspended animation. Each head is growing very slowly and, even after sitting in the frame for a couple of months, is still as fresh as any I could get from the garden in the spring. I’ll tell you right now that the little bit of work I did back then to get these seeds to grow more than pays for itself as winter approaches. Just having a bit of fresh produce you have grown yourself helps to keep me going until spring gets here!

Raised Bed Update

forsythkid — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:30:00 +0000

There’s Nothing Like a Homegrown Spring Salad!

forsythkid — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:44:47 +0000

Nothing says, “Hey! It’s Spring!” any more than a nice fresh salad with vegetables. Especially one grown from your own little backyard garden. Earlier in January, I had some misgivings concerning the lettuce starts I had seeded in October. For the better part of the winter, they just languished in the frames… not really doing anything. Then, as if by magic, as the weather became warmer in March and April, they really took off and flourished! To my increasing amazement, I am still harvesting romaine from the two cold frames (see my earlier blogs) and have to admit that now the effort was worth it. Pictured, at right, is a salad I prepared today. It featured homegrown lettuce, green onions, chives, celery and radishes. Only the celery is store bought. Not bad! Right now I have my spring lettuce starts in the garden and they are still a bit tiny. I’ve also put out green bell pepper, broccoli and Brussels sprout transplants along with some carrot seed that is now growing nicely. I’ll try and get in a more comprehensive report on the garden later next week.

Cold Frames Now Paying Off

forsythkid — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:08:53 +0000

Thanks to the two small cold frames I built last fall and the fact that I nursed some small romaine and spinach plants along this late winter, I now have all I can eat! Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. I do have a good supply to help augment my occasional iceberg lettuce purchases at the local grocery. Today I harvested about 56 grams (2 ounces) of a combination of plant leaves this morning which will be more than enough for a couple of salads. In addition, my small romaine transplants (I think there are seven of these) are now in some empty spaces in both cold frames and are doing well. These guys will be ready to harvest by sometime next month. While I was out there this morning I also planted some radish seed here and there. Where ever I had a little space. They should germinate and be ready for harvest in about thirty days. So, one bottom line to having some cold frames around is that they offer a bit of a buffer. You get a supply of early green while the main beds are still lying fallow. I am hoping to begin planting out back sometime in the next week or so depending on the weather.

Cold Frame Update – Early January 09

forsythkid — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:20:02 +0000

Well. Well. It’s the first week in the New Year and I’ve finally harvested my first morsel of lettuce and spinach for a grand total of nine grams! Yes, I said grams. Not much to show for my efforts at this point. I also had a single radish that was about half and inch wide and weighed in at 5 grams. As I think I have pointed out in another entry, the crop is more or less in suspended animation at this time. Everything looks healthy; it’s just not growing very fast. Had planted the seed back in September instead of late October, I think I would have a lot more to eat at this time.

The radish got consumed first and tasted great! The lettuce and spinach was next. I added a small amount of iceberg lettuce and a short stalk of celery, then sprinkled on some oil and vinegar. The result was a very fresh and tasty addition to my lunchtime fare.

My big hope is that as the weather moderates, I will see more and more growth. So that’s it for now. A total of 9+5 grams for a whopping total of 14 grams. My basket runnith over.

Cold Frame Insulation a Must!

forsythkid — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:29:58 +0000

Over the last couple of days, Mother Nature has dropped an arctic cold wave over much of the county. Here in southwest Missouri, we have taken a pretty good hit also. On Sunday, December 14, 2008, the temperatures went from the high sixties to below freezing in just a couple of hours. Yowsers! Overnight, they then dropped into the teens. This is the first time in my memory that such cold came so early in the season. Hey! It’s not even winter yet! Outside, I have two small cold frames I built out of 2×4’s that house young and tender romaine lettuce plants along with a scattering of radishes and spinach. When I began the experiment in September, I had anticipated December temperatures dipping to the twenties once or twice, but not the teens like we have had for the last two days. That’s just too darn cold!

To their credit, the structures have insulated the plants pretty well so far. The temperatures tonight outside will be very cold again, dropping down to 18F or so. This level of cold has been a trial for the plants. I hope I’ve prepared for them by taking additional steps to insure their survival. On Sunday, I made sure to turn on the small 40 watt light sources I have installed in each frame and then covered them with spare floor mats. As a result, the internal temperatures in both cold frames have stayed in the mid to lower forty degree range.

In reflection, if I made any mistakes, it may be that I have neglected to build up the soil around the back side of each frame. The earth is a great insulator and the other three sides are covered well, just not the backsides. Next week, I plan to attach some additional insulation to see if that will help. Also, I’m hoping the ambient temperatures will moderate a bit during the rest of the month.