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Gary350
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Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

All Lettuce an all greens gardens.

I keep seeing these all lettuce & all greens garden advertisements every where. Someone must think all lettuce gardens are more attractive OR more healthy than gardens with, tomatoes, beans, corn, peppers, potatoes, etc? Magazines at doctors office waiting room are full of all lettuce garden pictures. All lettuce garden pictures keep coming up on my computer. Advertisements that come in the mail are all lettuce garden pictures. I love 10 pieces of lettuce on a sandwich and a BIG HUGE salad. I don't understand lettuce garden advertisements maybe they sell garden products better than vegetable garden advertisements?

Look at the first picture I love this idea of wide bed rows, I use to do this all the time to save space in my smaller garden at the other house. 4 rows of beans side by side makes a lot of beans in a small area. 4 rows of potatoes side by side takes up less space too. 2 rows of tomatoes and peppers side by side takes up less space. Many times I have planted 10 rows of corn 1 foot apart wow this is a big space saver and it makes a lot of good corn.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Wed Jun 17, 2020 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

pepperhead212
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Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b

And unless you are way up north, you aren't going to be growing all lettuce and greens in the summer!

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

While I agree that gardens are good for the "soul", in terms of making money, it won't make you rich on a home garden scale. The benefits are the choices of better varieties and getting the freshest tasting vegetables and fruits. It costs more for the home owner since they don't have economies of scale and have to buy a lot of things retail. If you had to pay someone to do all the work that it takes to keep the garden productive, it might be a money loser. I think to make a profit from my small garden, I would have to grow the high value crops and I still could not afford to pay for my labor. I think, I figured out once years ago, all the costs that went into the garden from soil amendments, fertilizer, and pest control. I did not even include water, utilities and what it would have cost to "rent that space", I did figure opportunity cost. I think my earnings averaged out to 75 cents and hour. I might have been negative if I had added in the things I left out.

Lettuce is purely a winter crop for me. I can grow it in summer, but it would be tough and bitter and not worth it. It is better for me to grow okra, eggplant, peppers, and papaya. They are more productive, have more nutritive value (except the eggplant). are easy to grow and would fetch a better price if I actually sold them in the market. They have good trade value here. I traded komatsuna for worms for my worm bin.

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Gary350
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Your geographical location & weather definitely determines what you can grow & when you can grow it. I have learned that I can grow summer crops, corn, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, melons, onions, squash, okra, carrots, April to August. Then I can grow winter crops, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, chard, boc chop, napa, garlic, cilantro, kale, Sept to May. A whole garden of lettuce is a luxury item of us, no one could live on lettuce alone if you have nothing else to eat. Lettuce is nice to have on Tacos & sandwiches but not required.

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

While those rows of lettuce look good. It would be hard and totally not practical for me to plant that much lettuce at one time. I try to plant only a few seeds at a time.

I aim for 10 heads (it doesn't always work out that way), because that is probably the most I can eat in three weeks by harvesting the outer leaves. I should really aim for fewer because it is still a short crop 3-6 weeks and it is better that they are not all the same age.

I don't have a lot of space either so even 10 head of lettuce will take up some real estate in my garden.

I would rather plant kale, chard, Komatsuna, sweet potato leaves, bok choy instead, just because they last a little longer in the garden. Except for the bok choy, I can get repeat harvests for a long time. I can grow heat resistant lettuce, but like you said Gary, in hot climates, lettuce does not do that well in summer.

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TomatoNut95
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Today I harvested my green Romaine lettuce before the Big Freeze hits me on Sunday. At least I will have salad to eat on while I'm stuck indoors.

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Gary350
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imafan26 wrote:
Fri Feb 12, 2021 4:37 pm
I aim for 10 heads (it doesn't always work out that way), because that is probably the most I can eat in three weeks by harvesting the outer leaves. I should really aim for fewer because it is still a short crop 3-6 weeks and it is better that they are not all the same age.
That was my opinion once then I realized if I only plant a few seeds I have to wait several months for plants to get large enough to harvest a few leaves. If I plant a whole 30 ft row of lettuce I can harvest 1 tiny leave from every 60 plants and have lettuce to eat 2 months sooner.

I am not doing a total greens harvest this year is a learning project to learn how much cold my plants can survive. It is going to be about 15° every night & only warm up to about 33° every day for a week. Anything that survives this cold will get planted next year 25 foot row of each. I have decided to plant winter crops where corn was, those 5 rows soil is already full of nitrogen exactly what corn & greens both need. Depending on what greens I plant next year I might grow greens in the empty bean row too.

If I organize my summer crop rows so they get harvested in 1,2,3 order then greens can be planted in 1,2,3 order in the same rows. This is the first time I ever learned how & what to plant to do successive planting. My family never planted greens, I never learned how to plant greens, I never knew greens will grow in winter in 15° freezing weather. Boc Choy is doing very GOOD and a very good choice for lettuce substitute.

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Gary350
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Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Jan 19, 2024 I am already being swamped with garden ADs on my computer. Why do advertisers think a garden is only all greens? Greens are about 98% water. Tomatoes, corn, beans, potatoes, squash, melons, okra, peppers, are all found in the garden, too = also = as well. This picture looks fake.
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