After watching a couple of videos I decided to harvest some lettuce this morning. If you cut the leaves leaving about an inch to inch-and-a-half from the base it should start growing again. Other than a 30-45 day guideline and just watching them grow, I'm not sure how big they are supposed to get but figured they looked ready. I'm happy to report that our first organic-home-grown-lettuce salad was delicious and I only dressed it with some olive oil and splash of balsamic vinaigrette!
Hey, I'm a beginner :-) but I also learned that you want to cut the leaves before they 'bolt'. If the plant gets stressed generally due to temperature, drought, overcrowding, etc., it starts to seed and flower = bolt. It also causes the lettuce to taste bitter. I read that if your lettuce plants bolt, it's probably best to heap them into your compost pile and start again.
That must be what happened to my basil last year! It grew tall and flowered and did not produce the lush basil leaves I was expecting. On that note, we caught a segment on the Katie Brown Workshop program and watched her & her pal build a tiered herb garden that we may give a try. They used a wooden stair risers and screwed in wooden window boxes. Here is a link to her instruction page:
http://www.katiebrown.com/kbep1.cfm?cat=GROW&episodeid=6&seasonID=5
Hey, I'm a beginner :-) but I also learned that you want to cut the leaves before they 'bolt'. If the plant gets stressed generally due to temperature, drought, overcrowding, etc., it starts to seed and flower = bolt. It also causes the lettuce to taste bitter. I read that if your lettuce plants bolt, it's probably best to heap them into your compost pile and start again.
That must be what happened to my basil last year! It grew tall and flowered and did not produce the lush basil leaves I was expecting. On that note, we caught a segment on the Katie Brown Workshop program and watched her & her pal build a tiered herb garden that we may give a try. They used a wooden stair risers and screwed in wooden window boxes. Here is a link to her instruction page:
http://www.katiebrown.com/kbep1.cfm?cat=GROW&episodeid=6&seasonID=5
You look TOO happy eating that salad Miss.
ReplyDelete-Lidia