Friday, February 6, 2009

Growing your own lettuce

• Lettuce, as a daily staple vegetable, isn’t cheap. A 12-ounce bag of the non-iceberg variety is $3.69 for full retail, and barely feeds a family of four at dinner. Heads of romaine, butter, or red/green leaf varieties are upward of $2 per head. At $3.69 per bag, eating your own lettuce every other day during the summer will save you over $160 on your grocery bill.

• Every variety of lettuce (with the exception of iceberg) is rich in vitamins and nutrients and part of a healthy diet.

• Lettuce seeds are cheap. A single $1.79 packet will grow you all the lettuce you can eat all summer long.

• Lettuce can be grown in containers, so even if you don’t have garden space, a bag of soil and a dozen containers will keep you rolling in fresh lettuce this summer.

• You can grow your lettuce without chemicals, so if you’re trying to go organic, growing your own lettuce is a good way to incorporate your own organic harvest into your diet.

• Lettuce grows in just a matter of weeks, so you can start early, and then rotate more into your garden throughout the summer and well into early fall.

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