12 Happy Chickens

You can still have greens to eat during the winter months, if you’re patient. I’m not very patient, but I just can’t stop looking longingly at my empty garden, wishing I could take my morning walk out to grab what I need to make a fresh egg scramble for breakfast or a nice fresh salad for dinner.

Lettuce is very simple to grow- you just need a flat of soil (the rubbermaid totes work well) with good drainage. I use about 6-8 inches of soil. Just sprinkle the seeds over the surface of your planter, sprinkle with a layer of soil and water. You might cover the whole container with plastic wrap or a plastic cover to create a greenhouse effect to help your seeds sprout. I have my lettuce out in my shop and usually the day temps are between 60 & 70 degrees and when I am not in there the temps sit around 50 so a cool room with a sunny window should work but I use a grow light just to give them an extra boost.

To harvest your greens, you can do two different things; wait until they’re an inch-and-a-half to two inches high, then shear off what you want with a pair of scissors and eat them greedily. They should reach that height in a week or 14 days after after they sprout or back to the patients thing, and wait ’till they leaf out. You can keep doing succession plantings throughout the winter to have a continuous supply which is what I have been doing the last 3 weeks.

You can use any type of greens you like-lettuce mixes (I use seed savers) are good as you’ll get a variety. I also like to do a lettuce mix with bunching onion, snow peas, and mustard greens mixed in. You could also add broccoli, other types of beans, cress, radish, bok choy, etc. Whatever you like,  you’ll just be glad to have something fresh when the winter is starting to seem like it will never end! Which is starting to happen to me already….