For the lettuce, I recommend investigating growing your own. It's pretty easy to grow (climate allowing) and you can buy a 6 pack punnet of seedlings for a few dollars. Each seedling will supply probably 20-30 usable leaves over it's lifetime. The more you pick the more you get. It just needs some decent soil and a bit of water. If you let older plants go to flower and seed, chances are it will sprout again in large numbers without explictly replanting the seeds. Nothing is crisper than lettuce leaves plucked straight from the plant. Soggy lettuce in the fridge is not fun.
Not to mention, the slugs are a free source of protein!
Growing your own lettuce is great advice, and with the early fall rains in the bay area this year, this is the perfect time to get started. Carrots and radishes are other easy veggies to grow yourself this time of year.
Not with the lettuce, somehow. I have a lot of trouble with caterpillars on my other vegies such as broccoli, but they don't seem to eat the lettuce much. Maybe I'm just lucky. I have some organic bug spray but I don't use it much, I find it easier to just go and squash any uninvited visitors, and it's good thinking time to spend 5 minutes a day just looking for bugs (har har). I'm a rank amateur at growing - I experience tomato crop failures all the time. But for hardy stuff like lettuce and (most) herbs, it's really quite simple and rewarding.
I'm quite lucky with my climate though, but for a lot of people in California they should be similarly blessed (I'm not in California).
One thing I didn't note was that you'll need to plant your seedlings about 3-4 weeks before you're ready to start harvesting. But get it right and you should have an endless supply from about 6-10 plants, and you don't need much space for this. Just choose lettuce that the whole plant doesn't need to be harvested - ie, not 'iceberg' lettuce.
edit : here's a pic of my first crop about 4 weeks after planting. It eventually grew to about 4 feet tall. There's a couple of different varieties in here, I now only go for the ones like in the original article with a roundish leaf.
Comments
For the lettuce, I recommend investigating growing your own. It's pretty easy to grow (climate allowing) and you can buy a 6 pack punnet of seedlings for a few dollars. Each seedling will supply probably 20-30 usable leaves over it's lifetime. The more you pick the more you get. It just needs some decent soil and a bit of water. If you let older plants go to flower and seed, chances are it will sprout again in large numbers without explictly replanting the seeds. Nothing is crisper than lettuce leaves plucked straight from the plant. Soggy lettuce in the fridge is not fun.
Not to mention, the slugs are a free source of protein!
Growing your own lettuce is great advice, and with the early fall rains in the bay area this year, this is the perfect time to get started. Carrots and radishes are other easy veggies to grow yourself this time of year.
This sounds delicious, thanks for the advice. Do you ever have problems with pests?
Not with the lettuce, somehow. I have a lot of trouble with caterpillars on my other vegies such as broccoli, but they don't seem to eat the lettuce much. Maybe I'm just lucky. I have some organic bug spray but I don't use it much, I find it easier to just go and squash any uninvited visitors, and it's good thinking time to spend 5 minutes a day just looking for bugs (har har). I'm a rank amateur at growing - I experience tomato crop failures all the time. But for hardy stuff like lettuce and (most) herbs, it's really quite simple and rewarding.
I'm quite lucky with my climate though, but for a lot of people in California they should be similarly blessed (I'm not in California).
One thing I didn't note was that you'll need to plant your seedlings about 3-4 weeks before you're ready to start harvesting. But get it right and you should have an endless supply from about 6-10 plants, and you don't need much space for this. Just choose lettuce that the whole plant doesn't need to be harvested - ie, not 'iceberg' lettuce.
edit : here's a pic of my first crop about 4 weeks after planting. It eventually grew to about 4 feet tall. There's a couple of different varieties in here, I now only go for the ones like in the original article with a roundish leaf.
http://i54.tinypic.com/332p94k.jpg
That is an amazing idea. I wish I had even a little arable land.
You don't need much. Even a planter box on a sunny balcony would yield a useful amount.