homegrown

in winter

buttercrunch bib lettuce

In containers on my sunny, lake-side deck, it actually grew through winter.

October 13, 2020                                      November 29, 2020

...and time passed...

... and it was a mild winter...

...and I covered the lettuce plants on frosty nights...

...and brought them into the sunroom on the coldest nights...

...and eventually...

December 23, 2020

Buttercrunch is delicious. Lettuce doesn't have much flavor but "Buttercrunch" does.

Any colder winter and they'd have frozen.

the trick

Along with protecting them on below freezing nights, these guys get direct sun and reflected sun from the lake and off the house glass windows. So they receive almost three times normal northern winter light.

How about I build a "greenhouse" with a back wall of mirrors - and plant winter crops at the apex of all the reflected light.

Fun.

Click here to go back to Steve's spring journal 2021.