Last year I planted a few lettuce quite late in the season and managed to get a bit off them, but they never really looked that healthy or happy. This year, however I setup one of the raised beds with a couple of different types of lettuce.
I try to eat a salad of some kind for lunch most days during the working week, so being able to grow my own salad ingredients is a huge “plus”. The greenhouse is giving me cucumber and will give me peppers later in the season, so getting a reasonable supply of lettuce is nice addition. I’ve planted other things apart from lettuce in the bed, but the idea I had was to kind of mix them in together a little bit as they all grow at different rates.
I should also be able to get some of my own tomatoes from the greenhouse in the coming weeks, though how big they’ll be and how good is an unknown.
Last year I made a total mess of the tomatoes. This year I’d hoped to avoid making some of the same mistakes, so instead I seem to be making new ones instead! The fairly constant flow of water through the greenhouse is definitely helping encourage growth, but I let the plants (and weeds) get completely out of hand before I did any weeding or pruning. So by the time I did get in to do it I had to get quite aggressive. Too aggressive? I don’t know yet. Also I still have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to pruning. I get the general idea of removing extra branches and letting light in etc., but I don’t really understand much beyond that.
I’ll know how well (or badly) the tomatoes will do hopefully in the next week or so. At the moment one of the plants is definitely showing plenty of hope, but others are completely devoid of anything that even looks vaguely tomato shaped.
Other ingredients for salad will come from my herb garden which will help add some flavour to whatever salad I put together. Adding some freshly chopped parsley or basil really enhances the flavours. Maybe next year I’ll also have my own onions, but for now I’m hoping my garlic works out to be edible – I hope to know in a couple of weeks time!
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