BY Sarah Busdon
Editor’s Note: Part 1 of this series was published in the April 13 issue of The Weekly Sun.
Hardening off my lettuce plants was easier said than done. After several years of living in the Wood River Valley, one would think that I’d have learned our springtime can be quite irregular and unpredictable. We had hail and endless rain with an occasional spot of sunshine, which made the morel hunters quite happy, but for my little seedlings, it wasn’t exactly ideal weather.
Over the last month and a half I steadily increased the amount of time I placed my seedling tray outdoors and got them used to the wind, sun and rain.
I thought I would take it easy on myself and opted to try container gardening. I purchased a 20-inch-wide-by-24-inch-long-by-10-inch-high raised bed that sits on wheels. The container came with a self-contained watering system and aeration screen, water reservoir, fill tube and overflow holes. All that jazz in one container made growing my own food sound pretty easy.
A friend of mine makes her own nutrient-rich soil and offered to fill my planter. Having the proper soil is essential to growing healthy plants (that could be an entire article on its own).
Now that I had my soil, I was ready to transplant my plants. The pods I used to start my seedlings made it easy for transplanting. I created my rows and tallied up how many plants I could plant next to each other without overcrowding. I covered my soil with a protective cover that was included with the planter. Then I cut X’s into the soil cover where the plants would be placed.
The next step was to loosen up the pods’ netting and to gingerly plant them in their designated spots. I didn’t pack the soil down but gently covered the pods up to the base of the lettuce. I added enough water, per the instructions, for it to begin to trickle out of the overflow holes in the container. Once that was done all I had to do was let it grow.
The intermittent weather caused me to worry a bit, but I covered my lettuce planter with a sheet of plastic during the few cold days and nights that we had. I’ve been able to see the plants grow in size over the past two weeks, which has been so rewarding and a bit of a relief to know that I haven’t killed them yet.
Sarah Busdon in an administrative assistant with University of Idaho’s Blaine County Extension office. For more information, visit extension.uidaho.edu/blaine or call 208-788-5585.