2010 Palm Rae Potager Spring Salads!

I started some lettuce the other day for our spring salads inside under my lights. I usually put them in our containers outside  close to the  house as the days are longer and it warms up here in March and April. If it snows, we just cover them up. We do not purchase  or eat salads during the winter. Our last salad from the garden is around Thanksgiving which means our April salads are pretty important in the Midwest! We are spoiled by the fresh flavor from our spring  garden and a  bagged  salad mix  from the grocery store just does not taste  the same! 

I'm starting some of my lettuce early this year. I love to try different types in my backyard near Great Grandma Palm's old stove. I start my lettuce in the spring in various containers throughout my potager. My favorite is Bronze Arrow. I purchased  it from Seed Savers Exchange. This picture is taken after I had cut and come again various times. It just grew back and performed wonderfully!  It held up beautifully to the heat , however, I did have it in afternoon shade mid summer.

My Red Cabbage Story

This is how my adventures in  Potager gardening started back in 2003. I was on "watch and wait" for  2 years after I was diagnosed with Indolent Non Hodgkin Lymphoma. Around that time, they wanted to give me Chemo and Rituxin treatment to make my cancer behave, so to say. Well, I completed several months of  a  chemo CVP-R , and they wanted to save the "big guns" chemo( CHOP) for later, if I needed  to battle my cancer again. After my treatment in 2003, I attained a partial remission which was a favorable outcome for my slow growing lymphoma. I started gaining my strength back and wanted to get back to eating organically since I was up to eating and cooking again. I went to our local health food store spring of 2003 and put this beautiful softball size red cabbage into my shopping cart. I placed all my items on the counter and the sales clerk totaled up my bill. I was shocked to find out my lovely , beautiful red cabbage cost $6.95!  

The rest is history. I marched over to the local garden center and purchased a six pack of red cabbage starts, for $1.57( this is before I learned to grow all mine from organic seed). I was a bit ambitious and decided to put three 6 packs in and line my backyard garden bed with red cabbage. Well, it was not too hard, and they were  beautiful with my annuals and perennial flowers. People commented how lovely they looked, and I did grow 18 HUGE red cabbages  which were ready at the same time ( I knew nothing about succession planting at that time!). I was hooked, and my life was never the same.

I've been tearing up my lawn turf  for  7 years and putting fruit bushes, dwarf fruit trees, and vegetables  everywhere I could find to grow them!! My neighbors see me with my shovel and ask, Will you leave any grass? I did have to compromise and leave a row here and there to appease my family and neighbors. If it were up to me, I would never have grass again!