Monday, March 28, 2011

Lettuce planted.

Today I went ahead and planted my lettuce. I've gotten mixed information about when to plant, but just decided to go for it. It's just a Burpee Lettuce seed pack from Lowe's. Red and green leaf lettuce. I read that lettuce actually likes partial shade so it doesn't get leaf burn in the summer heat and considered planting it in the ground by our fence...


But the more I dug, the more bulbs I found from the canna plants I planted last summer. My mom gave me some bulbs and told me they were great growers - - and they were, albeit a little unsightly. They have flowers at the top that show up in early fall, but until then, they're just great big stalks. They're supposed to look like this:

And they grow really tall. Anyway, Jim thought he had dug all the bulbs out for me a couple of weeks ago, but when I started digging again, look what I found:


Close to twenty more bulbs of this stuff!! I think I got them all, but I wasn't sure, so I decided against this area for plants until I know I got all of them. They look like dirt clods in the picture but when you break them open...

They're ready and raring to go. Ugh. So on to plan B which is to plant them in containers. So I prepared my two new containers with some smashed up pottery in the bottom for drainage and then put them on either side of the soon-to-be potato bed.



I found these rocks at the dollar store! Using them as a weed barrier in my containers. I bought out the store. Pretty decent too since they were almost $5/bag at Lowes!


Next, I planted the seeds. Lettuce seeds are super tiny. I just put a few in each hole. I'll have to thin them out later when they start sprouting. Then I put 2 liter plastic bottle halves over each group of seeds to 1) form a protective barrier against squirrels, and 2) guard against upcoming frost. So here's what the planters look like:


I'll let you know later if anything happens!

No comments:

Post a Comment