I ended up picking close to 1 1/2 cups of lettuces. This may not sound like much, but represents a much better result from growing lettuces than I have had in the past. Previous attempts had me dealing with having to wait for frozen soil to thaw out, then slow germination, followed by squirrels and birds digging around in the soil where I'd just sown the seeds. The culmination was cool weather quickly changing to warm weather, which meant that my salad greens would bolt before they had a chance to do much of anything.
The abnormally-mild winter has obviously made a big difference this year! The ground never really froze solid, so I was able to sow the seeds outdoors before St. Patrick's Day. That was right around the time we had temps in the 80's for several days, so the seeds germinated very quickly.
It's turned cooler since, so they've grown very slowly, but finally got to the stage where they could be thinned. And miraculously, in all this time they've been growing, they've yet to be disturbed by either birds or squirrels.
So yeah, I have a nice little salad for today - and hopefully will have even more in the days ahead!
It's the "salad days"! Oh, I just couldn't resist! Congrats on your success. I'm not much of a gardener, in fact, I doubt my husband would even let me try again. We are good Farmer's Market customers. We leave the growing to someone with those skills. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks - my greens did make for a couple of tasty salads, so I'm looking forward to picking more. I'm not that skilled a gardener, but the growing conditions have been favorable thus far this year.
ReplyDelete