Tag Archives: Lettuce

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Mini Greenhouse: Using Roofing Panels to Warm the Soil

Using Fiberglass Roofing Panels to Create a Mini Greenhouse, Extend the Season or Warm the Soil

A few weeks back we had a spell of warmer weather and I waited till the end of it to attempt a sowing of pole beans. A couple weeks after the fact I decided to look for the seed as nothing was coming up. I dug around and found…nothing. The soil didn’t look disturbed so I’m not thinking it was birds. I’m guessing it was just too cool and wet and the seed rotted. When the weather gods predicted another bout of warm weather I was on it. It occurred to me that I could possibly get a jump on sowing if I could warm the soil. Remembering a mini greenhouse I used in gardens past I made a trip to the lumber yard and came home with an 8′ long roofing panel. Once upon a time these used to be made out of fiberglass and perhaps you can still find them but any I’ve found locally have been PVC or ‘polycarbonate’. I’m hoping they will work as well (and last as long) as the fiberglass panels used to. I’ve used them to extend either end of the growing season when just a few degrees can make all the difference. My hope in using them this time is that they will help to warm the soil a few degrees so that the bush beans I plan to plant there will have a better shot at germinating should the weather cool again (a very real possibility around here).

Shopping List

  • 1 clear or semi clear roofing panel. 26″ wide and the length of your choice. Mine was 8′ long
  • 4 1″x2″x16″ stakes per panel
  • length of wire or twine to secure the panel

Preparation and Installation

  1. Cut a 1/4″ notch into each of the stakes, a few inches from the top. This will insure that the wire or twine stays put. I cut my panel into 2 4′ sections but they can also be left whole.
  2. Once you decide where you want your panel to sit, drive two of the stakes into the ground approximately 6-12″ in from each end of one side of the panel.
    Drive two more stakes in 12″ from the first two. If two panels are being installed next to each other you can use 2 less stakes as the middle stakes can secure both panels (see image).
  3. Gently fold the panel into an upside down U shape and set it between the two stakes.
  4. Tie string or wire, crossing over the panels. Thats all there is to it!

Garden Happenings

Harvest

2 large bags filled with lettuce, kale and spinach
The Palco spinach is showing signs that it is about to bolt which necessitated harvesting that 1′ wide bed. Since I wanted the space on either side of it I decided to harvest one of the beds of the Mild Mesclun mix that was ready. I also harvested the rest of the red and butter lettuce from the bed next to the peas. I ended up with two large bags of green goodness, one filled with lettuce and the other with spinach and kale. Way more than we will ever eat I decided to fill some 1 gallon bags for the local food bank. I ended up getting 8 1 gallon bags in total. 3 spinach, 2 kale and 4 lettuce. 8 to go to Helpline and 1 bag of spinach for us.

Sowing

It may be too warm but I sowed two short rows of Renee’s Farmer’s Market Blend lettuce in the shade of the peas.

On the balcony I started a pot of SMR-58 cukes, Astia zucchini and another attempt at “Italian Pesto basil. ALL of the batch I started inside this spring ended up dying. Not sure if it was a rot or ? Need to investigate that.

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Lettuce Alone

Last night when I stopped by the garden I decided to sample all of the different varieties and take some notes. Our temps in the 50s and 60s have been great for the lettuce. We had about a week or so of fairly warm weather, so much so that I was concerned the lettuce would become bitter. In my experience it doesn’t take much for lettuce to taste bitter. Apparently I have the gene for that. As much as I want to like it, I can’t do beer, all I taste is bitter. I’ve tried every variety that is supposed to be the ‘least bitter’ and really see no difference. Quite often lettuce and kale come across as bitter to me while others eating from the same picking don’t experience it as such.

There were two plantings of lettuce this year, I direct seeded a couple of 1′ wide beds in early March and transplanted some starts from the local garden center in early April. Into the beds went Renee’s “Baby Leaf Blend” and Territorial Seed’s “Mild Mesclun Blend”. The transplants were a of several varieties, unfortunately some not well labeled. I was Jones’n and it was what they had at the time so I gave it a shot. Once again I was reminded that I really gain nothing by planting lettuce transplants. The directed seeded lettuce almost always seems to catch up to the transplants by the time harvest comes around. This year was no exception. I think part of the reason I still do the transplants is that I am so longing to see SOMETHING growing in the early Spring that the transplants seem like an easy fix.

Lettuce Taste Test Results

Variety Transplant(T) or
Direct Seeded(S)		 Planting Date Bitterness
Unk Oakleaf T 4/10/2016 –
Speckled Amish T 4/10/2016 –
Slobolt from Territorial’s Mild Mesclun Blend S 3/5/2016 –
Renee’s Baby Leaf Blend S 3/5/2016 – to +
Butter Bib T 4/10/2016 – to +
Grandpa Admires Heirloom Butterhead T 4/10/2016 +
Red Sails from Territorial’s Mild Mesclun Blend S 3/5/2016 ++
Unk Red Leaf T 4/10/2016 +++

The varieties are graded on level of bitterness to my taste with +++ being most bitter and – – – being the sweetest. Note that in this test, even the most bitter of the bunch is fine when mixed with other greens in a salad. It just doesn’t’ taste great to me by itself.

Lessons Learned

There is really no reason to start lettuce early or buy transplants. Other than the satisfaction of seeing something growing in the bare ground of early Spring, direct seeding lettuce results in a nearly equal first harvest date.

I tend to prefer the oakleaf varieties of the type I tried this year, one as a transplant of an unk variety and one in the Renee’s lettuce mix. Even though Renee’s ended up with a range of tastes from slightly bitter to not, the variety of tastes, shapes and colors made it my favorite overall. I was also very fond of Speckled Amish and Butter Bib. All in all this has been a great year for lettuce.