Have any of you tried this????

[timer lady]

http://www.bushelboy.com/

I bought this lettuce 3 weeks ago & the shelf life was incredible. Lasted a good 2 weeks - no spoilage. As I'm the only one who will eat salads on a regular basis I hesitated ordering this; even the smallest head of lettuce would go bad before I could finish it.

Just bought my second bundle!!!

Hope you can find it in your area.

 

[flutterbee]

Thanks, Linda! I'm going to have to look for that. We have the same problem....our lettuce dies before we can finish it. And I buy the red leaf (can't think of the name right now) for me and iceberg for Wynter so I'm always throwing away 2 different kinds. Ugh.

 

[mstang67chic]

In case you can't find it, my friend's mom bought some of those produce bags off of tv/internet. She said they work beautifully.

 

[Wiped Out]

I haven't seen it but it sounds great!

 

[Marguerite]

Serious suggestion about lettuce - grow some. I planted mignonette (you can get red or green), as well as cos, iceberg and oak lettuce. The mignonette and oak especially, you can treat as a growing supply, you only pick a leaf or so, and leave the rest. I'm the only one who eats red mignonette so I just left it growing and whenever I was making a salad sandwich, I would go pick another couple of leaves.

Eventually the lettuce bolted to seed but I left it until the seed had set, then gathered what I could.
Then baby lettuces began coming up in other pots and even between the pavers! I did the same thing again - harvested what I needed from the outer part and left the rest to grow.

I grow my herbs and vegetables in pots mostly, our soil is very poor here (almost pure yellow-white sand).

Lettuce seed also does well if it's been chilled (ie sow it in winter for a spring crop). In Sydney we often have to put our lettuce seed in the fridge or it won't germinate, although my lot sure did!

Another suggestion - a worm farm. Educational for the kids, plus it feeds your plants (the worm castings as well as the liquid that comes out). Worms LOVE lettuce!

I saw a really good backyard ecosystem on an Aussie TV gardening show. Here is a link:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1809099.htm

The area they describe is similar to ours - awful soil, so you give up and try something that doesn't use the soil for anything except support.

I'd like to set up something like this too, but we'd have to net it in with a roof and walls, to keep the wildlife out of it! Cockatoos can be very inventive when they're bored and want to get at our house or your garden. We've given up with gutter guard - the cockatoos keep pulling it out and throwing it on the ground.
But I put a bottomless bird cage over my lettuces and they can't get to them!

Marg

 

[hearts and roses]

I have been enjoying fresh lettuce from my garden for a couple of weeks. It is easy to grow and very tasty - do sprays or anything fake. Just rinse very well.

 

[timer lady]

I would love to have a vegetable garden - my small back yard has been surrounded by privacy fences. I have no decent sunlight during the day for a garden anymore.

husband & I have discussed this several times over the last year - trying to figure out if we can fit a garden in where kt isn't out with her basketball or the dog isn't out (Sally uses a certain area for doing her "business"). It just is not a go.

I miss my salsa garden since my neighbors on the west side of my yard put up their fence.

by the way, apparently we "offend" to have 2 privacy fences go up in the same year. Just cannot imagine!

 

[Star*]

I wonder if I crawled in the bag if it would keep ME fresh!

 

[Marguerite]

LInda, a couple of things you could try -

First, grow in large plastic pots instead of in the garden. That way you can move the pots around (or get someone else to). You could even put the pots permanently in a wheelbarrow, for the purpose.

Second, you could install mirrors to reflect light back into your garden.

Third, you can use the front yard where privacy fences tend to not be so high.

Often some plants do not need as much light as others. My vegetable bed is in the worst possible place for light - it's about a metre away from te shady side of the house, with a 2 metre high paling fence next to it. A shed hides it form the western sun and the house hides it from the east. It only gets a few hours at most (in summer) of full sun. I've been thinking of putting mirrors in, although husband said the shed is going soon. But even then - there is a very large, bushy bay tree shading it beyond the shed.
I am growing beans, bok choi, cauliflower (although they take twice as long to reach maturity), silver beet and snow peas. I have grown lettuce there, too. But my most success with lettuce has been underneath easy child 2/difficult child 2's potted roses.

If the screens are as high as that, you should have been able to object on the grounds of loss of sunlight.

I plant up a large plastic pot that's about half a metre on a side (or diameter) with a mix of herbs and salad vegetables. Red mignonette alternating with green mignonette makes a pretty border for marigolds, for example. I've planted lemon basil with a chili bush, so I've got colouful chilis changing colour from black, through to yellow and finally to red, with pale lime-green (and tasty) foliage underneath. That's only for summer, though - basil has all died back in my garden for winter.

You can also plant lettuce with pansies, so you are mixing colour with salad. And unless you point it out to people, they will never notice!

Window boxes can be good, too because they are a bit higher up and also get the warmth from the building, with reflections from the window.

Again, large pots where you can - they hold more water so the plants won't dry out.

It's not easy under difficult circumstances.

One thing about those privacy screens - it would make your visiting birds feel much safer!

Marg