Growing lettuce in your backyard - naturally

Growing lettuce in your backyard.

There are many types of lettuce varieties available. You can get seedlings or seeds for many varieties at your local nursery.

Seedlings have shorter harvest time, while seeds require more water. Pick according to your requirements.

There are many ways to classify lettuce types. Two ways of classification are – cold or warm weather, or by taste. There are a few things to keep in mind when growing lettuce:

• Lettuce will grow on most soil types, but they must be well drained (moist, not soggy).
• Soil acidity must be between pH 6.0 and pH 7.0. if it is below pH 6.0, add lime to your soil to increase pH
• Temperature must not exceed 28°C for warm weather varieties
• No variety can withstand heavy frost.
• Leave 18 inches between the rows for leaf lettuce and 24 inches for other varieties

With all varieties, keep in mind they have shallow root systems. Plant them in ½ an inch of soil, and water them regularly,

You should harvest your lettuce when it is young and full – old lettuce tastes woody.

Talk to your local nursery for any further help.

Natural Living and Living off the Earth

What is natural living?

Ask anyone this question, and you will get different answers each time. So what exactly is natural living?

All the products we use contain chemicals. Some of these are refined, some of these artificial, some of these are completely natural. When you go to your greengrocers, the fruit and vegetables have probably been grown with artificial help – fertiliser. This is not natural living. Natural living entails us living alongside nature – not adding artificially to it to grow food. Natural living also asks us to heal our body holistically – with herbs, not medicine. Natural living asks us to be holistically minded – to think of ways of improving out lives without being materialistic.

How do we ‘live off the earth’?

In a sense, we already do live off the earth. Every thing we eat or use starts out from the ground in raw form. The problem is that we don’t use our resources effectively. We use more and more, and the earth is starting to become tired. Adding chemicals to continue production is like a sugar boost, but how long can it last. Over coming weeks and months, I will be teaching you how to live sustainably, naturally,