We've been calling this the $10 Salad Garden, it certainly has produced enough to pay back our 10 bucks!
While we didn't actually sell any of it, we would have spent a lot to buy this much organic mixed leaf lettuce
at $6-7/ pound at the store.

The spinach has been a total failure. The seedlings I transplanted quickly went to bolt, and the few leaves I did pick
were not very good. I have lots of seed left in the packet, I'll plant again when the weather cools. This batch of
lettuce is now mostly gone, I'll replant my remaining seeds along with the spinach later. I have enough seed to
do 2 more sowings for a patch this size.




The $10 salad garden is circled below. In front of that are some of the other lettuce varieties I grew this spring-
Sunset, Buttercrunch, Yugoslavian Red and Black Seeded Simpson.

Week 1. We’re on the way to having a Salad Garden! The lettuce performed as expected, sprouted in 2-3 days.
The spinach is starting to show up slowly. Our weather this week is predicted to be mid 60’s and calm, perfect
conditions for putting the tray outside during the day to get some sunshine. We’ll bring the tray in at night.


This is the lettuce, a mix of various kinds. They all look the same to me so far.

Here we go! I planted half of the tray with spinach, half with lettuce mix.
I have enough soil left to fill the tray for the next planting and enough seeds for 2-3 more trays.


I covered the seed tray with a recycled plastic tortilla bag that I cut open.
I’ll keep the plastic on to prevent the soil from drying out until the seeds germinate.


Lettuce could germinate in 2-3 days, spinach 5-6. Come back in a few days!

This weekend, CNN proposed an assignment, “How far can $10 go?”
Here is the link to the article and to our entry. Our idea was to buy supplies to start a salad garden,
something that would return our $10 many times over. We headed over to a local garden center and
purchased this. The garden center also offered a free packet of a lettuce mix, a nice bonus!

Tomorrow I’ll plant the seeds in the tray. Check back here to follow our progress in the salad garden.
We’re going to keep this crop in a separate garden so we can monitor the amount it produces and
how much money we saved/earned. Tomorrow I’ll plant the seeds in the tray.