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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Water For The Dry Sponge
Chronicles and Essays
By Shaun Brown:
How To Grow Organic Lettuce
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by Shaun Brown |
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Mammograms and Age
Getting a mammogram, when you’re older
is easy, because your boobs are already
as flat as pancakes!
How To Grow Organic Lettuce
The more we learn about nutrition the more that most of us have also committed to eating healthier, cleaner, organic produce. Salads are my favorite. I don't know if it’s because I live in the salad bowl (N.Cal.) or all of us are becoming more aware of what we eat ~probably the later. I usually get my food from the local organic farmers market, Whole Foods, and sometimes the local grocery stores.
In August, when the tomato lady at the farmers market said that they would be back in January with spinach and kale, I got a big idea! What with the higher cost of organic fruits and veggies, relative to the cheaper sprayed and bioengineered ones, I would grow my own winter garden!
So I got on line and read up about winter gardens and the critters that habitat them around that time. I went to Lowes and bought two 10ft x 12in pine boards and 8 bags of organic soil costing about $100. At this point money was no object because that investment would translate into a wonderful bounty.
I paid my son, who has a truck, for gas and his time to schlep the beginnings of my garden box to the house. Once the supplies were unloaded I leveled a flat terrain, took my time and cut the boards and used screw/bolts for permanency on the corners. How simple it was to create a square garden box. The bottom of the box was covered in cut garbage bags, with a few holes for drainage and then filled with soil. It really felt like an accomplishment! That process took about two weeks. I have learned that doing the whole project in one day would get me in a hot bath and an emergency visit to my massage therapist. I have gotten smarter somewhat.
Lettuce and spinach were going to be the main theme. Once I learned how to master the easy ones I would move to the more challenging edibles. I bought the seed at the hardware store. The pictures on the front of the packet looked really inviting ~spring lettuce and spinach. I researched on line how to plant the seeds as well as reading the directions on the packet. It was important to get it right so that there would be rows and rows of wonderful, yummy, organic food in just weeks.
Did you know that if you space the seeds an inch apart on a wet paper towel, fold the towel in half trapping the seeds, you won’t have to thin from crowding once they sprout? You make the rows as long as you want with your finger and place the damp towel in the row and cover. Very cool. After the planting all I had to do was sit back and wait.
The packages both said about two weeks for seedlings and they were right. In my excitement I ran out every morning even from day one to see what was going on just in case they came up early. Day one nope~ day two nope~ day three nope~ well you get the picture and finally by day 14 you could see their little heads stirring and pushing their way into the world! I could almost grab my salad bowl and prepare for harvest any day now. Being so meticulous by using the inch spacing paper towel method, I was able to calculate just how many heads of lettuce and spinach I would be harvesting. My thoughts rested on gluttony. What if planted too much? Oh well I could always give it away.
As their little green heads kept emerging into the light, every morning I would run out and see how much they had grown. One of those mornings, when counting their little heads, I noticed that there were less of them ~hmmm. Was something starting to feast before me? Oh no! I ran to the computer and read more about the critters in the winter garden.
It appears that snails were the main culprit and some other bugs. The Gardner website suggested the snail killer sluggo because it could be used around the parameter of the garden and it didn’t hurt kids or animals. A second suggestion was 2-inch copper sheeting nailed all the way around the lip of the garden box. For some reason the snails get a small shock when they touch the copper. I know it sounds cruel but I had to laugh just watching them, in my head, receive a shock while trying to penetrate the castle walls. The third choice was condensed garlic juice.
Well then, those were my solutions. I hurried to the garden store and bought the big size of sluggo. I passed on the copper sheeting because it ran about $30 and I knew the sluggo would work anyway. But just in case I made the garlic juice ahead of time. The online instructions for that said to blend 50 or so garlic cloves in water, make sure they were peeled, strain the mash through a stocking then pour the juice into a squirt bottle. I did.
After generously applying the sluggo pellets to the parameter of the garden box I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful for an answer other than harsh pesticides. The instructions on the sluggo container explained that you wouldn’t see dead snails around because they would eat the bait, crawl away and die out of site. That was probably true because every morning when I went out to see the garden I never saw any signs of snails. What I did see were more and more little baby lettuce and spinach heads munched off!
Losing time and sprouts I was glad to have made the garlic juice ahead! It was supposed to deter any bugs from the winter garden because they were repelled by the taste. I sprayed it generously on the ground and on the leaves it even kept my cat away as curious as he was. Time passed and after spraying the garlic juice several days over the garden and daily investigation, it was as if I had invited all of the lettuce and spinach eating critters to a party! That garlic juice became a special salad dressing just for them. Gone were all signs of green leafy anything because within in a week of using the garlic juice someone had eaten all life down to the dirt. A bleak and empty plot of soil remained.
My heart sank~ How can this be? After all of my laborious and meticulous research simply dashed by critters with brains the size of a pin. This neoteric farmer was a failure. I can’t blame the culprits though I love garlic dressing too.
This process started in September and by mid October I was just pissed. I thought OK you little sneaky snail people if you want lettuce you’ll have it! So, as to not waste the seeds at least, I marched out to the empty garden box and with the back of my hand, like the swish of a blade, I made long indents in the dirt. The seeds were dumped without measure until the packets were empty. Total sewing time 30 seconds. I covered up the rows and screeched, “It’s all yours snail people eat away this winter!”
I didn’t return to the back yard until mid-November, I saw no reason with the cold snap and all. But with the urging of my cabin-fevered hound, feeling the need to fetch his ball in the yard for a change, convinced me outdoors. I looked over and happened to notice, in this dead of winter, my garden box with rows of growing lettuce!
I’m not sure if it was the intense intent with the frivolous second planting or I scared the critters away but I had healthy, un-messed with rows of lettuce ready to pick! Enough for a small bowl but nonetheless. Wow! What ever happened or didn’t happen, what ever I did or did not do I decided to just let it be and picked the small amount. Even if there wasn’t a lot the idea that the lettuce grew in spite of me was humbling. It’s now January and I think lettuce grows even in the frost because I still have lettuce thriving thru the coldest part of the year! Whatever.
The lesson I learned in all of this is the best made plants of mice and men…and that this type of gardening takes a lot of time and expertise, which I do not have. I probably won’t ever attempt a winter garden again, not when I can buy huge healthy heads of lettuce and spinach for a few bucks. The building of the box will not be wasted because in the summer it will house the proverbial hearty tomato. The price of organic anything has just gotten way cheaper in my head. Some things are better left to people that have the passion and not just the curiosity! Go organic growers! Whatever super powers you possess I bow to you!!
Until next time bless You
Shaun
BeWellPublications.com
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Shaun Brown,
Author, Speaker,
Columnist
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Shaun Brown has been self employed most of her adult life. She has an AA degree in General Business and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from California State University, Sacramento, in Communications.
Her main focus of education is in advertising, promotion and production. Ms. Brown began writing music 1971 and has continued to unfold as a writer in many other directions since that time.
Her best selling book is based on the course: "Create A Successful Holistic Business." She has authored two books on the subject and is actively involved in teaching workshops in N. California. Her holistic business articles are published in several national holistic magazines, and she has a successful holistic practice in Orangevale, California.
To find out more about Shaun’s books and workshops visit her on-line at
www.BeWellPublicatons.com.
BeWell!
Shaun Brown
BeWellPublications.com
916) 988-4322
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