Re-growing Lettuce

If you have been on Pinterest lately you’ve seen pins about re-growing Romaine Lettuce.

It’s not a hard concept.  Stick the crown end in water after you’ve cut off all the lettuce.  I figured I ‘d give it a shot and I have to say, so far I have been amazed.  We’ll see what happens going forward.

 

Day 1

 

 

Day 2

 

 

Day 4

 

 

All I did was pop the lettuce into a jar of water.  Every other day I have rinsed off the crown and changed out the water.

PS: I do not recommend slicing a bit off the bottom when re-growing romaine.  It makes the lettuce grow slower.

 

Sliced Crown Day 2:

 

Sliced Crown Day 4

Have you ever tried re-growing a vegetable?

Harvest #3

We planted Hungarian wax peppers on a whim, they were at the greenhouse when we bought plants and we figured it was worth a shot.  They are a hot pepper with a yellowish green color.  They look a lot like banana peppers.  We planted jalapenos last year and were hoping for a milder hot pepper.

 

Astonishingly, they set fruit almost as soon as they were planted and on June 30th, we picked a few.

The only problem is, we have no idea what to do with them!  There aren’t enough to can, we can’t make salsa or pickles yet, and Jon verified that they are too hot to eat plain.  They left his mouth burning for quite a while.  It seems all of our garden hot peppers are 50 times hotter than grocery store varieties.  Any ideas on how to use just a couple very VERY hot peppers??

The other half of the story

Yesterday I showed you how we used hay to mulch around the base of our plants in our vegetable gardens.  Today I’ll show you the other half of the story.  We decided to plant our rows far enough apart to run the rototiller between rows while the plants are relatively small.  As you can see, the hay is great, but there are A LOT of weeds in between the rows.

 

These rows are 5-6 feet apart in the wedding garden.

The mounds of large gourds and pumpkins:

In our vegetable garden the rows are about 3 feet apart.  Note to self- Next year, do not plant up to the fence.  It is nearly impossible to turn around!

 

This tiller, while helpful is a handful and a heart attack depending on which job you’re doing.  It is very awkward to maneuver and it’s self propelled.  Seems like a great idea except it doesn’t move unless the tiller is spinning and it’s moving forward.  Yeah that sucks at the end of the rows!  It wouldn’t be so bad if the reverse worked, but that is a luxury which does not work on ours   Make due with what you have right?

 

So while Jon wrestled the tiller, I was busy having a heart attack as I’d watch the tiller jump and jolt right at our plant babies!  I shouted encouraging words like, “Cucumbers trump cabbage! and “Please don’t kill my tomatoes!”

 

I did not spend the whole time cheering on the rototiller though.  I also worked to hoe weeds in areas that the tiller could get into but would never get out of and hilling our potatoes.  I’m hoping for a bumper potato crop this year.  Last year we harvested early and canned because they got blight and I ripped them out   They’ve been moved to a new area this year to help prevent a repeat.

 

Weeding is typically everyone’s least favorite part of gardening, but you have to help these baby veggies along as much as possible:

Hungarian Wax Pepper

 

Okra:

 

Green zebra heirloom tomatoes:

 

 

 

Ace Bell Peppers: