Spring lettuce
It is February. It is time to get planning that survival garden. If you are a first time gardener, decide where you will buy your seeds. If you want move more toward self-sufficiency, buy heirloom seeds that you can harvest and replant for years to come. If you do not have an established garden area, look for a sunny space. Gardens need a minimum of 8-10 hours of sun per day. You cannot grow good vegetables without enough direct sun. I do not recommend that you begin with a very large
garden. Start a little smaller and get some experience. Then you will be more confident to move ahead. Grow your favorite heirloom vegetables the first year and each year following, add a few more varieties. Even try something that you have never eaten before, like kale, or eggplant, or okra, or rhubarb. Expand your tastes and your food supply. Learn different ways of eating vegetables, raw or cooked in a variety of methods. You will never want to go back to eating supermarket foods again! Each harvest
is a new adventure and look at how much you are learning!
I have been gardening for many, many years and I still like to try new varieties and new methods. I have my favorite non-hybrid tomatoes, but I love to try a few new ones each year. There are lots of different open-pollinated squash, some for the summer, and some that keep months for eating in the winter. And of course there are lots of different lettuces. It seems that the most delicate ones never reach the produce department of the store. They don't stand up to the shipping, but they are wonderful fresh from the garden or even from the farmers' market. Lettuce does not cross pollinate very much, so planting several varieties in the same bed is not a problem. I have left them go to seed and plant them again the next year. Lettuce can be planted quite early in the spring. Late frosts do not bother it. Same goes for peas. Depending on your location, peas, potatoes and lettuce are some of the first crops we plant along with radishes. They may not grow real quickly when the weather is still cold, but when it warms up, they are already established and grow quickly.
Our Basic seed kit is an excellent starter, or get one of the larger kits for the freezer so you have seeds for a survival situation
