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3 Great Reasons To Grow Your Own Salad
Salad season is upon us. After the comfort foods of winter the freshness of salads is, well, refreshing.
Salads make great summer meals and really are a tasty addition to your lunchbox or dinner table any time of the year. But once the days lengthen and warm up they make the perfect light meal. And you know you should be getting more leafy greens in your diet - and fresh salad is the tastiest way to eat more greens.
Why not start growing your own lettuces so you have a steady fresh supply of greens at your fingertips? It’s a lot easier than you think and there are some very good reasons why you should grow your own salad.
It Tastes Better
Let’s start with the obvious one first. Homegrown salad just plain tastes better. It is fresh, it has been grown in good soil, and it hasn’t been washed, sprayed and processed days before it makes it to your plate.
If you haven’t had fresh, homegrown lettuce before, you’re in for a treat. If you need a little more convincing get your hands on some fresh lettuce from a gardening friend or your local farmers market. You’ll be ready to grow your own after the first bite.
Lettuce is more than the good old ice berg variety too. There are Cos and Romaine and lots of different loose leaf types. If you would like to try something different, Celtuce is delicious. And of course lettuce is cheap to grow. A packet of seed costs around $2 and holds 100+ seeds - that's a lot of lettuce.
You Control The Quality And Variety
One of the best parts of growing your own produce is that you control what goes in the soil and the plants. And you get to pick what varieties you want to grow. That means you have a lot more options than what your local supermarket offers.
Supermarket produce varieties are grown for easy and uniform growth and longer shelf-life; flavour and nutrition aren’t the main concerns. The opposite is true when you grow your own. You can pick varieties that taste amazing, but may not last more than a few hours in the fridge after you harvest them. And they cost less, much, much less, than buying them from the supermarket or greengrocer.
It’s Healthier
Last but not least, your home-grown salad will be so much healthier. Nutrients quickly start to deteriorate after produce is harvested. When you grow your own, you can go from garden to table in less than an hour. It doesn’t get any fresher than that, which means you get more of the vitamins in your food.
And since you control the soil, the additives and anything that happens to the plants while they grow, you can limit your exposure to pesticides, insecticides and the likes. When you grow organic, you know it actually is organic.
How to Grow Great Lettuce
The main thing to remember when growing lettuce is that all varieties have shallow root systems so then need lots of water. Well composted and fertilised soil will hold moisture, ensuring the lettuce gets the water it needs. Otherwise they're pretty easy.
If you've bit the bullet and bought a packet of seed just scatter it lightly over the surface of your garden bed (or pot - they're great for a pot garden). Then cover the seed with a fine layer of seed raising mix and water it with a mister or the mist nozzle on your hose (any heavier and the tiny lettuce seeds will wash away). Keep the seed-raising mix moist and in 7 - 10 days you'll start to see your tiny lettuce appear.
If growing from seed isn't your thing a trip to your local garden centre will get you punnets of lettuce seedlings. They're easy to plant. Just remove each seedling from the punnet and put it straight into your prepared garden bed, firm around the base of the plant and water them well with a solution of Seasol (or worm tea - even better) and water from a watering can. Remember, your hose pressure may be too strong for the seedlings until they're established.
Keep your lettuce well watered. I like to feed them weekly with well diluted worm tea (or Seasol if you don't have worms).
Salads make great summer meals and really are a tasty addition to your lunchbox or dinner table any time of the year. But once the days lengthen and warm up they make the perfect light meal. And you know you should be getting more leafy greens in your diet - and fresh salad is the tastiest way to eat more greens.
Why not start growing your own lettuces so you have a steady fresh supply of greens at your fingertips? It’s a lot easier than you think and there are some very good reasons why you should grow your own salad.
It Tastes Better
Let’s start with the obvious one first. Homegrown salad just plain tastes better. It is fresh, it has been grown in good soil, and it hasn’t been washed, sprayed and processed days before it makes it to your plate.
If you haven’t had fresh, homegrown lettuce before, you’re in for a treat. If you need a little more convincing get your hands on some fresh lettuce from a gardening friend or your local farmers market. You’ll be ready to grow your own after the first bite.
Lettuce is more than the good old ice berg variety too. There are Cos and Romaine and lots of different loose leaf types. If you would like to try something different, Celtuce is delicious. And of course lettuce is cheap to grow. A packet of seed costs around $2 and holds 100+ seeds - that's a lot of lettuce.
You Control The Quality And Variety
One of the best parts of growing your own produce is that you control what goes in the soil and the plants. And you get to pick what varieties you want to grow. That means you have a lot more options than what your local supermarket offers.
Supermarket produce varieties are grown for easy and uniform growth and longer shelf-life; flavour and nutrition aren’t the main concerns. The opposite is true when you grow your own. You can pick varieties that taste amazing, but may not last more than a few hours in the fridge after you harvest them. And they cost less, much, much less, than buying them from the supermarket or greengrocer.
It’s Healthier
Last but not least, your home-grown salad will be so much healthier. Nutrients quickly start to deteriorate after produce is harvested. When you grow your own, you can go from garden to table in less than an hour. It doesn’t get any fresher than that, which means you get more of the vitamins in your food.
And since you control the soil, the additives and anything that happens to the plants while they grow, you can limit your exposure to pesticides, insecticides and the likes. When you grow organic, you know it actually is organic.
How to Grow Great Lettuce
The main thing to remember when growing lettuce is that all varieties have shallow root systems so then need lots of water. Well composted and fertilised soil will hold moisture, ensuring the lettuce gets the water it needs. Otherwise they're pretty easy.
If you've bit the bullet and bought a packet of seed just scatter it lightly over the surface of your garden bed (or pot - they're great for a pot garden). Then cover the seed with a fine layer of seed raising mix and water it with a mister or the mist nozzle on your hose (any heavier and the tiny lettuce seeds will wash away). Keep the seed-raising mix moist and in 7 - 10 days you'll start to see your tiny lettuce appear.
If growing from seed isn't your thing a trip to your local garden centre will get you punnets of lettuce seedlings. They're easy to plant. Just remove each seedling from the punnet and put it straight into your prepared garden bed, firm around the base of the plant and water them well with a solution of Seasol (or worm tea - even better) and water from a watering can. Remember, your hose pressure may be too strong for the seedlings until they're established.
Keep your lettuce well watered. I like to feed them weekly with well diluted worm tea (or Seasol if you don't have worms).