Thursday, January 1, 2009

Adventures in Gardening (Mesclun Lettuce)

Out of all the plants I've been growing I've eaten the lettuces the most (which isn't really saying much and it also makes sense that it would be the one I eat most of). Here is a beautiful pile of baby greens in my salad bowl. There were several other times when I was able to snip a lovely pile to eat. 









Unfortunately, at one point, the lettuce pots started growing some kind of white mold on top of the soil. I was extremely alarmed and tried home remedies such as sprinkling cinnamon on the soil. Eventually I dug up what mold I could without damaging the plants. Truth be told, the lettuces did not look the worse for growing with some mold but I didn't want to take chances. I think it was the weather since it was quite humid in the apt at the time. Once the weather cooled and dried, the mold disappeared completely on their own. This problem was most pronounced in the pili pot.









Here is a picture of the lettuces and other plants during the fall. I started getting a large batch of the reddish leaf lettuces. I think they were lolla rosas. The arugulas were doing well during this time too and added a spicy bite to my salads.









After I came home from California (29th), I made one last very large (by windowsill standards) salad. The leaves had grown quite large and some of the plants were starting to die. One of the lettuces bolted. After cutting leaves for salad, I pulled out the remaining plants except for the bolted one. I wanted to see the flowers bloom and maybe try to gather a few seeds. My original plan was to empty the pili pot of soil and drill a few more drainage holes in the bottom but surprsingly, two little sprouts appeared in the soil so I will keep that going a while longer. As for my strawberry container, I have sown a new crop of lettuces. I'm not sure they will take hold since it is winter, but it seems worth a shot.

Posted by Picasa

No comments:

Post a Comment