How Does Your - Lettuce woes

Well I had hoped that the hard part of our gardening adventure had already passed since I had managed to get enough seedlings in the dirt to make it seem worth the paper’s time. I thought that from here on out we could just enjoy our produce together and the public humiliation portion of this season’s entertainment was over, but I was wrong. Can someone please tell me why my iceberg lettuce looks like two completely different plants? If you recall I managed to sprout several beautiful iceberg lettuce babies in the office. I had so many that we held a competition and I even took a couple of plants home. My plants at home look gorgeous even though I wouldn’t know how they taste because my goats got to them over the weekend, and Brian’s lettuce plant in the office is so lush that he could just drizzle some dressing over it and go to town as it sits. So why are the plants on the patio struggling to survive? I started them indoors on April 14 and transplanted them outside on May 5 using the guidelines on the packet. Since I transplanted them into their containers outdoors I’ve slowly watched Brian’s indoor lettuce and my plants at home flourish while the container lettuce continues to embarrass me. It’s rimmed with this red, rusty color and it just isn’t thriving the way it was in it’s starting containers. I did a little research and it could be a couple of things. Firstly, it could be a phosphorus deficiency. Now since the lettuce in the 5-gallon containers has access to a heck of a lot more nutrients than the one in the old Pepsi bottle I’m less inclined to give this one too much thought. It could be environmental stress which would be understanding considering the whiplash we’ve all been enduring with the weather but since the other plants in our container garden look happy I’m not sure that’s right either. But it is possible that they’re getting too much sunlight. My container rows are running west to east on the patio and I put them where I thought they’d get the most sun according to the instructions on the packet. However, a quick internet search says they might enjoy some afternoon shade in hotter climates. If you’ve been outside at all in the last week you know that our neck of the woods has indeed been a hotter climate. I am roasting my lettuce. On Monday I moved them to the opposite side of the patio where the garage will offer them a little bit of shade. Hopefully they aren’t too far gone and I can salvage some of the plants. In the event that they don’t perk up and it is the phosphorus, fish poop is loaded with phosphorus and a little bit of fish tank water might be just what the doctor ordered. I have a supplier on-hand in my sister whose current hyper-fixation is fish tanks, but we’ll give them a little bit of time and see how they like the shade. My other massive problem is the weeds on the patio. I have dedicated about 10 minutes every day to pulling weeds and each time I come out to find that my efforts have been futile. I have several obstacles in this area. We already know that I’m not allowed to use chemicals and I haven’t had much success with vinegar and dish soap. I also tried scalding hot water but our Wisconsin dandelions were not at all intimidated by that. I read that some people have used salt but it really doesn’t feel economical to buy that much salt just for it to trickle into the river. So now what? I’m going to buy a torch, that’s what. For the low low price of $24.30 I can purchase a torch that will conveniently connect to a one pound propane tank just big enough to both power a camp stove and incinerate a weed down to its very core. What’s not to like? I’ve mentioned a few times that I can be a bit of a tightwad; I like to get the most bang for my buck. But more often than not I will forgo purchasing something that could make my life easier even when I can afford it and even when I’m not saving up for something special. I just feel guilty spending money on something I could do myself or something I don’t necessarily need. But I just recently realized that in doing so, I am robbing myself of the time I could be spending doing other things. Why not spend the $24.30 instead of stressing about the weeds day after day? In trying to save money I’m sacrificing my time, which some could argue is even more valuable. Instead of pulling weeds for roughly 40 hours each year I could be completely torching them, which sounds both therapeutic and productive. If you see a small fire out back behind the Star News sometime in the near future, it’s just me doing a little gardening. Mandee Ellis is a reporter at The Star News. Contact her at Mandee@centralwinews.com.