Complimentary Blueberry Juice

This season I planned an 8th crop of lettuce, anticipating having built our greenhouse already. When it became clear we were not going to be able to build the greenhouse until fall time, I decided to go ahead with the crop anyway, and plant as if. My thinking at the time was to see how late we could grow lettuce, and just how slowly it would grow, and how much more time it would need in the cooler temps and dwindling light. The second-order benefit would be that if we needed to adjust the seeding or transplanting dates, we would know that now, instead of later.

So I planted it anyway, and this is what it looks like as of November 12th, in Zone 4:

That’s pretty phenomenal!

Not only that, the quality of the lettuce is amazing. It is similar to spring lettuce, there’s just a little extra greatness in lettuce grown in cool shoulder seasons.

The really surprising thing was not that we got the seeding and planting date right and we won’t need to adjust it much, the surprising thing was that our lettuce has survived -6C nights absolutely no problem under the row covers. This is a really valuable unexpected find. The implication is that we know when we do build the greenhouse, we won’t have to worry about heating it all that much, perhaps just to -4C or so.

This bed had everything it needed to succeed: it had a fresh compost mulch, it was planted at the right time and irrigated, it was fully weeded, and the row covers went on early. We don’t always hit all those points, and it really shows when we do (and also it shows when we don’t!)

For next year, we can rotate this bed with carrots, or perhaps for leeks. Having a 3rd crop on a bed in a season is really great for loosening soil, and having this bed go this late into the season will be even better. All the root structures will disappear after the hard winter frost, and all that microbiology will be present to start the spring. We’ll have to wait and see which bed is best for Leeks (which need the loosest soil we have to plant as deep as possible) but this November lettuce bed is a top contender.

Stay curious!

Graham

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