Winter Lettuce
Want the taste of fresh lettuce all year round? This winter I made several trips to my parents house in South Eastern Ohio. We shared a lot of delicious meals together, including Italian pasta dishes, home made bread and fresh salads from the garden. What a delight to enjoy the fresh taste of lettuce during the winter!
My mother, Peggy, has a wonderful three level garden....which she fills with fresh herbs, flowers, and lettuce greens. During the winter she plants small lettuce plants and covers them with plastic sheets resting on pvc pipe. She runs heat tapes throughout which she plugs into a nearby outlet in her basement. An alternative, she told me, would be to dig a deep bed and add manure and soil to keep them warm.
Peggy plants a variety of lettuce plants including green leaf, kale, arugala, and romaine. It's exciting to pull back the plastic sheets and see all that green! While the plants grow slower in the winter, they still grow enough that we can pick at them all winter long. Peggy said that plants that normally take 1 1/2 months take about 3 months to grow in the winter. She also said that she covered the beds last october or november and just uncovered them last week. Here are some links to sites that have tips about growing lettuce in the winter:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/lettuce1.htm
