Greens

Anyone with enough space for a good size window box that can get slightly less than full sun, is paying too much for lettuce in the summer months. Even if you only eat three heads of romaine, it is cheaper and more convienient to grow it yourself! .

My small garden patch of lettuce and spinach has produced in one week enough greens to provide the two of us with 3 dinner size salads each! Last week we probably had 1/2 that much, but now it will continue full steam ahead for another 2 months, assuming I reseed every few weeks. If I figure that it would take a head of romaine a week to provide us with this quantity of lettuce, and a head of romaine is $1.50, in 3 weeks I will have paid for both the lettuce seed mix and the spinach seeds!

With a careful selection of varieties, and the addition of any of a number of edible flowers, one lowly flower bed could be transformed into a treat for the eyes and the tastebuds. Not only is it pretty to look at, but think of the amount of fuel you are saving because the lettuce doesn't have to be transported several hundred miles, the plastic bag that will not have to be used to get it from farm to table, and the knowledge of exactly what kind of fertilizer and pesticides were (or in my garden, were not) used in its production. In addition to all of that, you and your family will be more likely to eat your veggies, get more fresh air, exercise and stress relief in the process because you will be outside for at least a few minutes one or two evenings a week tending your garden.
What are you waiting for? Start a lettuce patch today!