How much space for lettuce?

[brumbird]

Hey folks

I am honing the plan for the garden patch and past the "i want to grow everything" stage and onto the "what do i want to eat" stage. I think the main aim for me is to try and stop buying herbs and lettuce from the supermarket. So if i do successive sowing lettuce wise (mixed leaf) what sort of area would supply me if i want to feed two greedy people three times a week from the garden?

[vixylix]

you get past the 'I want to grow everything' stage? Mine gets worse every week...!

[brumbird]

Ha! Yeah i have to reign it in but i know you can have too much of a good thing, or a bad thing if you dont like eating it! So i thought about our weekly shop and what we buy. I need to plan ahead a bit more really as i should include more roots for autumn and winter

[plam]

I grew the salad bowl type last summer and we had rows adding up to two metres long in total - sown successionally. The two of us ate it every week, but I don't think we were eating it as often as three times a week. So more that 2 metres I think!

[brumbird]

Thanks plam - i am doing square foot gardening so would translate that as about 6 squares. So maybe i will do 9 squares

[Penellype]

It depends what sort of lettuce you mean. If you mean a big fat hearted lettuce like an iceberg or a butterhead you are going to need a lot more plants than if you like the baby leaf types that you can buy ready prepared in bags. The advantage of this sort is you can pick and mix and have salad all year round, and most lettuces will regrow to some degree even if you pick all of the leaves, as long as you leave some buds.

There's only one of me, but I find I can give myself a baby leaf salad with about a standard pudding bowl of chopped leaves maybe 3 or 4 times a week for much of the year using pots on windowsills and a few pots outside. Salad Bowl, Lollo Rossa, Oakleaf and Relic or the mixed leaf varieties work well with this sort of method and you can ring the changes with additions such as mizuna, pak choi, baby spinach, corn salad, nasturtium leaves, microgreens etc depending on the season.

Herbs grow well in pots, and some of them (particularly mint) can be very invasive if not confined. I would hesitate to try to grow herbs in a square foot garden as some are perennials which may not suit that method.

[Bren In Pots]

Don't forget things like pea shoots are nice in salads, but they grow easy enough it troughs.

[Jimmy]

I usually grow Little Gem plus there is also a red Little Gem.
I start them in those little trays with 8 holes, the ones you get from garden centers when you buy 8 little plants. I put a couple of seeds in each and put 4 of each variety in.
Thin them out when they grow and if needed use thinning on any holes that didn't germinate.
Once they have a few leaves and roots appear out the bottom you should harden them off. Put outside through the day and bring in at night for a few days.
Plant out and cater for slugs.
I tried sowing direct in the ground but the slugs get them as they pop up.

As for growing every thing ..
I use this concept.
Grow what you use/like.
Grow what's dear in the shops.
Grow what's easy for you.
Ever year have an experiment.

So for example carrots, if you must only grow a few. They are dirt cheap in the shops.
Spring onions however are expensive.

Hope this helps
Jimmy.

[brumbird]

Yes this is my thinking - am growing some root veg for fun amd quite want to do a couple of sprouts for xmas dinner. Aside from that its the salad stuff that costs a lot and its so much nicer fresh. I remember doing a cookery course at a michelin star restaurant about 8 years ago. Someone asked about organic produce and he said its good to grow or buy organic anythig you eat the leaf of, as the chemicals are more concentrated on the leaves of stuff like prepacked salad.

[brumbird]

Ive got a mixed leaf packet to start me off. Am sure ive sowed too much but we will see how they come up

[ESBkevin]

My Father grew lettuce commercially many decades ago, he had a huge rake like device with the points 9" apart. He would draw it along the rows and then across to form squares, where each intersection/corner ocured a lettuce would be planted. This resulted in a thick bed of green with each plant completely filling the available space and producing large round 8oz+ lettuce for the supermarkets.

I know you are going for a different kind of plant but does that give you an idea.

[Penellype]

Ive got a mixed leaf packet to start me off. Am sure ive sowed too much but we will see how they come up

Thin them out as they grow and eat the thinnings

[Potstubsdustbins]

I grow Lollo Rossa and mesclun in troughs, both are cut and come again varieties.

The troughs are 6"w x 6"d x 18" long. Four troughs will supply 2 of us and we both like fresh salad leaf.

I find the trick with lettuce is to have small plants waiting in pots, so it's pick one plant one so to speak.

[brumbird]

Yes i am going to try and have a couple of trays on the go so that seedlings are sown a couple of weeks apart, and then once planted on i will resow in the tray and so on.

[MarkPelican]

As for growing every thing ..
I use this concept.
Grow what you use/like.
Grow what's dear in the shops.
Grow what's easy for you.
Ever year have an experiment.

So for example carrots, if you must only grow a few. They are dirt cheap in the shops.
Spring onions however are expensive.

Hope this helps
Jimmy.

I'd add one thing to this, grow what's nicer than bought. Homegrown Sweetcorn and runner beans are nicer than those in the shops even if they're not expensive.