Lettuce & Spinach
I love this time of year when we can get our first fresh veggies from the garden. Lettuce and spinach are two of the earliest crops each year. Lettuce can be planted here as early as the end of March.
A little lettuce and spinach leaf of history:
- Lettuce has been cultivated since 4500BC in Egypt. By 500BC, both the Greeks and the Romans were growing lettuce. Columbus introduced it to America in 1494.
- Spinach is thought to have originated in ancient Persia. It was introduced in Europe in the 10th century, and first cultivated in the United States in the early 1800s.
14th century artwork depicting a lady harvesting spinach
A week ago, I planted our lettuce and spinach seed in the garden. First, a line is stretched out between 2 posts as a guide to make a straight row. Then, I dragged a rake handle along the row about a ¼ inch deep for the seed.
Then I planted the seed.
Besides Mesculan and Spinach, I planted Black Seeded Simpson which is a green leaf lettuce, and a Looseleaf Mixture of green and red lettuce.
I’ve watered them every day since then, and a couple days ago, they started to come up.
Spinach
- Lettuce
When they are about 1/2 inch high, I’ll thin them out per the directions on the seed packets so that they aren’t overcrowded. In a few weeks we’ll have fresh lettuce & spinach to eat, and it will produce until early June. And all for the price of only a few seed packets. I’ll have more posts later as it grows.
