Tag Archives: lettuce

Little gem for us square foot gardeners

I’ve been growing zucchini vertically for years in my square foot garden. All vining crops are grown on trellises to save room, and to also provide better air circulation and sunlight. You know that zucchini leaves can get very large. As long as you have things that can get some sunlight you can use those larger leaves as a shade cover to cool down the soil for crops that don’t normally like the extreme temperatures we get. I’m able to get good morning sun on this lettuce, and then the larger leaves shade it for the hottest part of the afternoon, Combined with 3 or 4 other tricks, you can grow lettuce all summer long no matter where you live. We have temperatures in the high 90’s and even low 100’s every year. My ebook is right over there on the blog if you want to learn more about growing lettuce in the hot summer months. 

Square Foot Gardening-the only way to go

No wasted space, no wasted seed, hardly any work, no thinning, and no weeds! Here’s an example of growing what you actually eat. There’s really no sense in planting your entire gardens at once. Why do that? All that means is it will come up at once. At some point these 12 squares will be all lettuces. You can see its a shaded area so I use this bed a lot in the summer to especially grow salad greens. By not planting it all at once, you can see how I’ll have a steady supply of salad greens for a while. Each square is at a slightly different stage, a few haven’t even been planted yet. You can also see the very last of my carrots that over-wintered in this box. I had over 200 of them in there.

Speaking of lettuces, my favorite thing to grow, warm weather is just around the corner. Once outside temperatures go beyond 75-80, it becomes next to impossible to even have lettuce germinate in the garden. We have temperatures in the high 90’s and even a few days of triple digits, yet I’m able to easily grow lettuces right through the summer. I wrote an ebook about how to successfully do this. Check it out.

All ready for a small winter garden

This is just one small area where I use a sunbox to grow winter salad greens. It’s less than 2 feet deep and just short of four feet wide. This uses very inexpensive wood(2X4’s laying around the house), and a window frame that cost me $5 at Restore for the top. I’ve got two different kinds of lettuces, arugula, and spinach. I’ll wait until it gets a little deeper into the fall season before adding another layer of wood. If I put it on now it casts too big of a shadow at the front edge of the box. Maybe in 3 weeks it’ll be a better time. I usually end up leaving a small opening in the box by simply moving the glass cover back about 2 inches. I don’t every really worry about closing it all winter unless we have single digit temperatures at night, which we have on occasion.

Growing in bags

If you don’t get the right soil, nothing else really matters. Here’s an example of great soil used in a grow bag made from homemade compost. Pictured in the bag is Queensland lettuce, green ice, claytonia, and red sails lettuce. Harvest it correctly and this small bag will feed you for weeks with a great fresh diner salad.

A quick start for spring gardens

I don’t have a soil block so I put together a homemade version. And it works perfectly. In 17 days, or sooner, these will be ready to plant right into my sun box. After about 10 days they go right into the garden, where they will grow very quickly. What the difference between a sun box and a cold frame? A lot. I’ll be teaching a class on how to have the earliest spring garden possible in zone 6.