Growing Lettuce in Pots

Recipes for Success: Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Habit: Leaf, Head
Cultivars: Numerous cultivars are commonly grown with good success, including

• Green Leaf - Green Ice, Simpson Elite, Black-Seeded Simpson
• Red Leaf - Red Sails, Lolla Rosa, Cherokee, Firecracker
• Boston/Butterhead - Buttercrunch, Kweik, Sylvesta, Pirat
• Head - Ithaca, Summertime, Nevada, Tiber
• Romaine -Parris Island Cos, Red Romaine, Crisphead

Pot Size: Medium
Water: Water the container to maintain a uniform moisture supply during growth. Early watering will insure that the foliage dries out before dark.

Comments: When choosing what type of lettuce to grow, remember that the darker the leaf, the richer the produce in beneficial nutrients. Most gardeners who grow lettuce raise the loose-leaf type, with either dark green or reddish leaves. This type is a fast-growing, long-lasting lettuce used for salads and sandwiches. Butterhead or Bibb lettuce is a loose-heading type with dark green leaves that are somewhat thicker than those of iceberg lettuce. Butterheads develop a light yellow, buttery appearance and are very attractive in salads. A miniature variety of butterhead, Tom Thumb, is very easy to grow and requires a short growing time. Bibb lettuce will develop bitterness if temperatures go above 95 °F.

Romaine or cos is less commonly grown by gardeners but is a very nutritious lettuce that deserves attention. It too is relatively easy to grow, forming upright heads with rather wavy, attractive leaves. Crisphead, also known as iceberg, has a tightly compacted head with crisp, light green leaves. Many gardeners find this type difficult to grow in high temperatures.

Seeds: Plant seeds to a depth approximately twice the thickness of the seed, water, and tamp soil firmly. Keep soil moist but not saturated, and keep pot out of direct sunlight to avoid overheating. Thin to approximately one plant per six square inches for leaf varieties and one plant per foot for head varieties. Leaf thinnings may be used in salads as soon as they are picked.

Transplants: Place in hole no deeper than original root ball and tap around stem firmly.
Soil: The soil should be well-prepared to provide good seed-to-soil contact (when planting seed) and ensure rapid stand establishment. Mulching is effective to control weeds and keep soil temperature cool.
Insects: Commonly encountered insects include aphids, cabbage looper, corn earworm, and leafhoppers.
Solutions: Spray for mites with biologically friendly non-detergent soap mixed with water (1T per gallon). Slugs and snails may be picked off and disposed of by hand.

Diseases: Damping-Off (a fungal condition) affects small plants, which may wilt and die soon after emergence. Other diseases include gray mold, Rhizoctonia bottom rot, and Sclerotinia drop.

Solutions: Use only high quality treated seeds and avoid excessively wet soil and prolonged exposure to cool temperatures, conditions favorable to disease.

Health Benefits: There are many different types of lettuce and related greens but only one truth: The darker the leaf’s color, the more nutritious it is. Beta-carotene is the chief disease-fighting element featured in dark-colored greens. As an antioxidant, it is a potent fighter against certain cancers, heart disease, and cataracts. That lush dark-green color also indicates folic acid, which helps prevent neural-tube birth defects in the early stages of pregnancy. Researchers have also unveiled several other important contributions that folic acid has made to health. It can play a significant role in the prevention of heart disease and cellular inflammation. In fact, most salad greens (and not only lettuce) offer significant sources of vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. Chicory, another good source of vitamin C (a powerful antioxidant), is also linked to the prevention of heart disease, cancer, and cataracts. Some other beneficial salad greens, such as arugula and watercress, are members of the cruciferous family (along with cabbage and broccoli), adding even more ammunition to the ongoing battle against disease and lending a new meaning to the phrase, “Green Revolution.”
Ready for the Kitchen: Most leaf lettuce should be ready to harvest about 75 days after planting. It can be used as soon as plants are 4 - 6 inches tall. Bibb lettuce is mature when leaves begin to cup inward to form a loose head. Cos or Romaine is ready to use when the leaves have elongated and overlap to form a fairly tight head about 6 - 8 inches tall. Harvest in the morning after dew has evaporated. Regular harvests will keep leaf lettuce from bolting. Store in the refrigerator in the coolest area.

Annual Savings: Approximately $45 per year per person on average.

About the Author

D. J. Herda is author of the best-selling book, From Container to Kitchen: Growing Fruits and Vegetables in Pots (New Society Publishing, 2010).

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Growing Tomatoes in Pots

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum)

Habit: Trellis, Cherry, and Plum.

Cultivars: The following tomato cultivars are recommended for container gardening.  Most are indeterminate (trellis or vining) except for Celebrity and Small Fry.

Improved: Better Boy, Better Bush Improved, Big Beef, Celebrity, Early Girl, Park's Whopper, Terrific

Cherry Type: Juliet, Small Fry, Super Sweet 100, Sweet Million

Plum Type: Viva Italia

Trellis Type: Tropic

Always choose varieties with disease resistance.  Fusarium wilt is a common disease that can destroy an entire tomato crop.  Many varieties are resistant to this disease.  This is indicated by the letters VF after the cultivar name.  VFN means the plants are resistant to Verticillium, Fusarium and nematodes; VFNT adds tobacco mosaic virus to the list.

Seed or Transplants: Both

Pot Size: Medium-to-Large

Water: Water regularly, allowing soil to dry out between waterings.

Comments: Tomatoes come in a wide range of sizes, tastes, colors, harvest times, growing habits, and purposes.  They are also available in your choice of a wide range of heirloom (mostly true from seed) and varietal hybrid types in trellis (i.e., spreading or indeterminate), bush (upright or determinate), or patio (compact ultra-determinate).  Add to all of that a multiple of colors and sizes, and it’s no wonder that tomatoes are among the world’s most suited vegetables for container growing.  They are also among the easiest to grow and are valuable garden plants in that they require relatively little space for large production.  Each plant, properly cared for, yields 10 to 15 pounds or more of fruit.

The varieties of tomato plants available may seem overwhelming, but they can be summed up by several major types:

1. Midget, Patio, or Dwarf tomato varieties have very compact vines and grow well in hanging baskets or other containers.  The tomatoes produced may be, but are not always, the cherry-type (1-inch diameter or less).
2. Cherry tomatoes have small fruits often used for snacking or in salads.  Plants of cherry tomatoes range from dwarf (Tiny Tim) to 7-footers (Sweet 100).
3. Compact or Determinate tomato plants grow to a certain size, set fruit, and then gradually die.  Most of the early-ripening tomato varieties are determinate and will not produce tomatoes throughout the entire summer.  Because of their compact habit, they make excellent container candidates.
4. Beefsteak types are large-fruited.  These are usually late to ripen.
5. Paste tomatoes have small pear-shaped fruits with very meaty interiors and few seeds.  They are a favorite for canning.
6. Orange or Yellow tomatoes may only be available to you by growing your own
7. Winter Storage tomatoes are set out later in the season than most tomatoes and the fruits are harvested partially ripe.  If properly stored, they will stay fresh for 12 weeks or longer.  While the flavor does not equal that of summer vine-ripened tomatoes, many people prefer them to grocery store tomatoes in winter.

Seeds: Plant seeds to a depth approximately twice the thickness of the seed, water, and tamp soil firmly.  Cover pot with a clear plastic container or wrap, and wait for germination.  Keep soil moist but not saturated, and keep pot out of direct sunlight to avoid overheating.  Uncover at the first sign of sprouts.  Thin to approximately one plant per six square inches when second set of leaflets form on plants.

Transplants: Remove all lower leaf stems except top two levels.  Place plantlet diagonally in a trough three inches deep in the soil, leaving only the upper two levels of leaves exposed, and tamp firmly.  Roots will grow from the covered plant stem, as well as from the plant’s root ball, creating a stronger, healthier, more drought-resistant plant.

Soil: The desired soil pH for tomatoes is between 5.8 and 6.5.  Tomatoes are heavy feeders.  Use a starter solution for transplants and feed throughout the season with a low-nitrogen fertilizer to encourage greater fruit production and less foliar growth.

Insects: Watch for spider mites and aphids in particular, as well as green horn worm, if plant is kept outdoors. Solutions: Spray plant with biologically friendly non-detergent soap mixed with water (1T per gallon water).  Worms may be picked off and disposed of by hand.  Wear gloves if you’re squeamish.

Diseases:  Fusarium wilt, which attacks and can kill young plants, is a notorious fungal problem, although in recent years, the susceptibility to the wilt has been greatly reduced in modern varieties.  The disease is first marked by the yellowing of older leaves, then bright yellowing from top to bottom of the plant, often affecting only one branch.  Sometimes the leaves droop and curve downward.  Infected plants most often wilt and die.  Solutions: Use Trichoderma harzianum, a harmless additive, as a soil drench to suppress root pathogens on newly sown seeds, transplants, and established plants.  Also, use only sterilized garden or potting soil of medium alkalinity (pH 6.5 to 7.0).  It’s a good idea to keep your plants well ventilated, either naturally or through use of a small electric fan to keep the air around the plants circulating.

Health Benefits: In the arena of food and phytonutrient studies, the star of the show over the last decade or more has been the lycopene in tomatoes.  This carotenoid has been the subject of numerous studies for its antioxidant and cancer-preventing properties for years.  The antioxidant function of lycopene helps protect human cells and other physiological structures in the body from oxygen damage and has been linked in human research to the protection of DNA (our basic genetic material) found inside white blood cells.

Another antioxidant role played by lycopene is in the prevention of heart disease.  In contrast to many other food phytonutrients, whose effects have been studied only in animals, lycopene from tomatoes has been studied in humans for years.  The results show that it is a powerful combatant to a wide range of cancers, including colorectal, prostate, breast, endometrial, lung, and pancreatic.

While lycopene may play an important role in the growth of healthy tomato plants, it isn’t the only shining star that gives this food a growing reputation for being on the front line of defense against disease.  Recent research suggests that scientists are finding a wide range of nutrients in tomatoes—and not merely lycopene—are responsible for promoting human health, with additional studies being launched daily. 

Ready for the Kitchen: When fruit is fully formed and deep in color.  May also be harvested green before the first killing frost and allowed to ripen at room temperature (not refrigerated) for up to eight weeks, although I have in the past ripened some in this manner for up to four months.  It takes 55 to 105 days to maturity depending on the tomato variety, so know what you’re planting in advance.  Pick fruit when it is fully vine-ripened but still firm.  Picked tomatoes should be kept away from direct sun. 

Annual Savings: Approximately $130 per year per person on average.

Check out From Container to Kitchen: Growing Fruits and Vegetables in Pots by D. J. Herda. Or get the Kindle Edition Here.

Why Container Gardening?

The first book I ever published on the subject of growing plants in containers was one of the first books I ever published period. It was called Growing Trees Indoors, and it was a runaway hit, coming within a few hundred thousand copies of making the New York Times Bestseller List.

The book earned me, back in 1979, nearly universal praise (someone from Wisconsin’s Mt. Horeb Mail said it was a damned fine book, with pictures and everything) and garnered me a fortune in royalties, totaling nearly $800, if memory serves me correct. It also taught me a valuable lesson about the concept of growing plants in containers: People weren’t ready for it.

Today, more than 30 years later, all that has changed. For one thing, I’m just about exactly 30 years older. For another, I’m a whole lot smarter. And, finally, people are ready for it.

Why the change in attitude? Why is the time right today for a book on growing plants in containers—and not only plants, but edible plants, fruits of the womb, sustainable-growth harvestable manna—as opposed to a book on container gardening more than three decades ago?

Well, for starters, more people than ever before are living in urban environments. Apartments, condominiums, spider holes stacked nearly one on top of another—just about any habitable space is being inhabited. That means that more people than ever before are no longer able to enjoy the benefits of traditional gardening. But that doesn't mean they can't enjoy container gardening!

A Healthier Alternative
People feel a need to garden because they’re more health-conscious than their ancestors were. They’re better informed about the world around us. With all of the periodic stories about tainted produce, who wouldn’t worry? With all the tales about produce laced with toxins and heavy metals, about irradiated and otherwise diminished foodstuffs of questionable nutritional value and similar concerns, it’s suddenly not only socially expedient but also physiologically critical to find a source of clean, fresh, vitamin-rich produce.

Yet, today, when you visit the produce section of your local supermarket, you find apples that were picked in Madagascar three weeks ago; tomatoes that were plucked green, gassed, and trucked up from Mexico four weeks ago; bananas that were picked unripened from a plantation in Costa Rico five weeks ago; and bell peppers whose origins and date of harvest are still a mystery.

Stand back and watch as little kids fondle the produce—right after holding their pet frogs and iguanas. See adults coughing and sneezing into their hands before hefting a dozen tomatoes and returning them to the stand as not quite ripe. Observe employees hoisting cardboard boxes from stacks of other cardboard boxes sitting on the floor and emptying their contents into bins marked “Special - $2.79 a Pound.” Fresh, healthful fruit and produce? You tell me.

Cutting Costs
People, too, are turning increasingly to gardening because they worry about the high cost of shopping. I remember a time not long ago when meat was the most expensive thing you could buy at your local supermarket and vegetarians were considered frugal, if not outright weird. Today, fresh fruits and vegetables rival and in many cases surpass the cost of meat—thanks in great part to spiraling harvest and delivery costs—and vegetarians present a glowing portrait of people who know something the rest of us don’t. Of course, they’re still considered weird, but that’s another story.

With the rising cost of produce such as we are experiencing, how can we cope? Who wants to take out a second mortgage on the condo merely to buy fresh fruits and vegetables? Who wants to give up financial liquidity for a few more years of physical and emotional well being? Or could there be another way?

I hate paying through the nose for those things that I could be supplying for myself and my family for next to no cost; and I wanted to put all of the knowledge I have gained about container gardening to good use. What choice did I have but to tackle the ultimate book on fruit and vegetable gardening?

There are other reasons for the timeliness of my book, of course. Improved technology makes no-yard gardening easier than ever. Modern inventions (mere pipedreams back during the early days of garden writing) and new discoveries about effective horticultural techniques make growing fruit and vegetables in pots more practical than ever. New varieties of plants—both fruits and vegetables—called cultivars (short for “cultivated varieties”) make container gardening much easier and more successful than in the good old days B.C. (Before Containers). Thus was born the concept for this book.

But those are not the only reasons for growing fruit and vegetables in pots—not by a long shot. There are others, and I’ll be talking about them soon. I'm guessing you'll be amazed at the things you can do and grow with a minimum of knowledge, a minimum of space, and a maximum of enjoyment. I'm also going to tell you how container gardening can not only change your life, but also very possibly save it.

You'll learn which fruit and vegetables grow best in pots, which varieties outperform their less robust cousins, how to plant and nurture your crops from planting to harvest, how to build your own best recipe for gardening success, and how get the message out to others: the time is right for container gardening. And you’re going to learn about it right here. Guaranteed.

Check out From Container to Kitchen: Growing Fruits and Vegetables in Pots by gardening author D. J. Herda, available from Amazon.com and booksellers everywhere. Or get the Kindle Edition Here.