After the first 12 lettuce plants we had were promptly eaten by slugs as soon as they hit the ground, we have decided that we are not yet ready to give up. I mentioned before that we found some lettuce plants at Sunflower garden center two weekends ago and we have decided that instead of putting them in the ground outside, we will start growing them in the window boxes along our courtyard. The boxes are outside so we don’t have the issue of fluctuating temperatures (if we were to grow them inside for example) and there are certainly no slugs to worry about here!
We planted all of them this weekend in two long planters. They are probably not spaced quite as far apart as they should be but we hope to take leaves off multiple plants when we have salads instead of taking the whole head since the two of us don’t usually eat an entire head of lettuce together at one sitting and like to mix the types of lettuce together with cucumbers and tomatoes. The heat has not been very kind to them but thankfully it’s cooling off and I’m keeping plenty of water on them so they are starting to grow. The next few weeks should be really great for them since it’s supposed to go back to highs in the 60s and 70s.
We have 3 Iceberg, 3 Lollo Rossa and 3 Butterhead lettuce plants. And last week when I stopped in the grocery store real quick for a few basics to get us through the weekend I saw seeds for two kinds of Lamb’s Lettuce and for fall Butterhead lettuce. Color me excited!
I am pretty sure that we would be able to pick up the lettuce plants also for the Lamb’s Lettuce when it’s time to put it in the ground…but if I can get it to grow from the seeds, that will be even better. A packet of 200 seeds costs €0.69 and each lettuce plant is €0.15. Definitely a bargain, especially when you consider you pay almost €1 for a head of lettuce at the market…
These seeds only sprout in temps between 3-18 degrees Celsius (36-60 degrees Fahrenheit) so I’m thankful it’s going to cool down again. We do have temps like that overnight and in the early morning but I’d rather wait before failing miserably because of the heat.
By the way, if you wonder how the plants are recovering from the ammonia attack, nothing has died yet. In fact, I’m thinking that nothing probably will which is very excellent news. Our zucchini plants are growing like crazy and we have another 3 large zucchinis to eat now and more on the way…we also harvested a nice sized cucumber yesterday and will have around 50 tomatoes growing riper over the next few weeks. Still no eggplants showing yet but it looks like the fruit are finally starting to form…and some of the Thai chilies and Cayenne peppers are finally starting to come out.
Now if I can just some control on the weeds around the rest of the garden we will be in business. I’m taking on the task of spraying a lot of stuff down with Round-Up today so we’ll see how things progress there over the next 2 weeks as all the weeds (hopefully) start to die off. It’s a never ending battle back there!
