Have you seen the price of lettuce these days, it can cost as much as 6 dollars for full size head of lettuce in the store, 5.99 or you can get three smaller sized head of romaine for 9.00 but that’s not Canadian grown.

I started off trays of assorted types of cold hardy lettuce and moved them over to bigger pots to get them grow and did leaf harvests.

The weather is finely warm enough that these plugs which as you can see are very root bound got planted out into a newly dug and turned season extended bed. Starting to put the straw microclimates to use now that the ground is thawed. Yes i am aware of just how tightly these are planted but the cold framed spacing is limited and some of these are to eaten quicker then you would think and once they are out, they will be taken out so that the others will have more room to grow. New trays will stagger started, with a few different types of cold loving/hardy types

Are you being able to start moving out different starts from the indoor growing area to the outdoor cold frames yet? Today we moved out the lettuce and the rhubarbs babies, making a lovely big space to be filled with the coming to be transplanted pepper plants and more tomato’s etc

It is time to start so many things now that we are within 10 weeks till our last frost date, they say its about 8 weeks but per my own personal farm records its 10 🙂 Still many things will be able to started now, and moved to harden off in the porch greenhouse, giving room for one more push in the spring plantings, but i am also planning on growing a lot of flowers in the downstairs plant area this year for fall planting out as back fills

What is some of the first things you are look forward to in your garden or forage to help with your food costs?

Remember that you don’t need to have the latest and best to be able to grow a tray of lettuce on your window ledge or on the steps or deck and you don’t need to wait till its the perfect size you get the store to start using it, pick a leaf on each one and you have enough for sandwiches or wee lettuce wraps

Those big glass covers are recycled windows and they work great, the straw will be reused in the gardens as mulch and then it will feed the soil itself. Anything left over that does not make it for the kitchen will go to the fowl flocks, helping their health and mental well being.