Tag Archives: lettuce

Early square foot garden planting

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early spring planting of arugula and lettuceI know it’s probably way too early to start but I like to experiment on cheating the seasons. I’ve still got 2 layers of protection over my square foot garden main beds and feel pretty confident that I can get these two crops to germinate and grow.

I decided to give this an attempt because I looked at the weather report and saw low’s in the mid-20’s, highs in the upper-30’s to low-40’s and some sunshine. That should be good enough to start a few things. The real issue is bang-for-the buck.

This will successfully grow(hopefully)and be done in about 80 days. If I wait another 3 weeks and began planting lettuce then, it would be ready in 55-60 days. So, why start early? Because I’m bored. We hit the 10 hours of sunlight later this week which is another early sign that spring is close.

To learn more about the two crops planted click here and here. I love this variety of arugula. It’s milder than any I’ve had before, and it’e even more so when harvested in the baby stages.

By clicking on any of my Burpee links, you get free shipping for online orders of any size by entering “B1FA” into the promotion code box when checking out. Its a great time to start ordering your seeds[ois skin=”1″]

The Winter garden, part 3

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winter garden of goodies under the coversAnd that’s what underneath. Lots of snow with a lot still to come. Wish I would have planned a little better for the winter. I waited just a tad too long to plant because I was too busy growing for customers. I might have enough to take us through January but that might be about it. Since many of the seed catalogs have arrived I’ve begun to plan for the early spring. Nothing better than sitting inside in the dead of winter with a good seed catalog to look over.

This will be a very short post. I wanted to put something on before the big day got here. With that I wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I’ll be taking some time off until after the first of the year.[ois skin=”1″]

My square foot winter garden is here

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snow covered winter gardenCan you believe there’s a garden back there? That’s thirteen inches of snow my low tunnel endured! Wow! We had more snow yesterday than we did all of last year. I had several low tunnel/winter gardening classes at my home this fall. Several of the participants doubted that the hoops would be strong enough to withstand a serious snow storm. I assured them that it would and here’s the proof that it does.

Often times in northern Utah after a snow storm we get very cold night temperatures with the clear skies. I like to keep the snow on the hoops as an insulator for a couple of days until it warms up a bit. To do that I use a broom to sweep the snow off the top. Another thing about the snow is that it seals the tunnel completely along the base of the garden. Thats perfect for me because I don’t bury any of my coverings. I keep the material taut and then weigh everything down with 5 gallon bucket filled with water-which are now ice. These are certainly heavy enough to hold things in place. And this winter we’ve had 2 days of 50 and 70 MPH winds.

Tomorrow I’ll broom a portion of the snow off and lift the top up to harvest enough salad greens to last us for a few days. It’s easy to do because the protective covers have been pulled tight along the length of the hoops. Lettuce, spinach, mizuna, and carrots will be the choice this week. Spinach, claytonia, and chard next week. A different lettuce, minutina, beet greens, and tokyo bekana the week after. I wish I could tell you how fun it is to eat seasonally like this.[ois skin=”1″]

More lettuce varieties for your square foot garden

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arctic king lettuceI’m always searching for lettuces that can make it through the winter and taste good. Because the leaves get a light frost, I don’t worry much about the taste-it’s always good this time of year.

I received an email today announcing that Cooks Garden will now be rolled in to the Burpee catalog after a couple of weeks. Burpee owns Cooks so it’s not that big of a deal. I just don’t know how they’ll separate the specialty seeds for kitchen cooks as they’ve always done. You might have to search both of them to find this particular lettuce. It’s called Arctic King. This is my second winter season growing it. The very cold night temperatures haven’t seemed to bother it a bit. There’s no leave damage and it’s gotten to about 75% of its normal size. Learn more about it here. Order some and give it a try. You won’t be disappointed. It’s too late to grow from seed this time of year, but this performed very well in the spring garden as well.[ois skin=”1″]

Holiday gift ideas for the gardener

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green ice lettuceHow about some suggestions for the upcoming holidays? Since my birthday follows so close to Christmas it’s a fun time of year. I spend a lot of time reading through the seed catalogs in order to find new things to try. And, I usually try a lot! The folks who do the marketing for these companies-they are very good. One gets the idea after reading any description of seed packet that all of them are equally great. I don’t think that’s the case.
One of my favorite things to receive from family or friends are gift certificates to seed companies I love to buy from. There are many to choose from, but I’ve become partial to those I’ve done business with.
The picture for this post is a lettuce variety called Green Ice from Burpee’s. You can read the specifics of this variety here(read reviews.)  I’ve grown this for two yeas and I continue to be very pleased with it’s ability to withstand the colder temperatures of the early spring and late fall. It’s a crispy type of lettuce that tastes very good. I like to harvest for our daily salads by snipping a few leaves of several lettuce types. That way, the head lasts us longer and it allows us to have a very different tasting salad every night.  Green Ice has come back twice after the first snip of it’s outer leaves.
As we move into the winter months I’ll be making more recommendations of the items I’ve had success with and which do well in our climate-zone 6B.  Many of these will be different lettuce varieties.  It’s my favorite crop, it’s easy to grow, it’s cheap, and it tastes so good when just harvested from the garden.  You’ll hate buying lettuce from the stores after you’ve tasted your own.

And, you don’t have to limit yourself to seeds.  What about a friend or family member who is planning to have their first garden next spring?  They will need more than just seeds.  Maybe an entire seed starting kit would be the perfect gift for them with all the supplies needed to get them off to a great start?

 

The best thing about buying from catalogs?  No question-the great variety.  And with the way square foot gardeners plant, only using 2 or 3 seeds per hole, your 700 seeds of lettuce are going to last you for a long time [ois skin=”1″]