It’s now been a couple of weeks and we are starting to see some major growth! We also went ahead and planted another herb garden in another strawberry pot as well as a few edible flowers as well. What we end up doing with the edible flowers is anyone’s best guess!
After having the Lettuce Grow now for a few weeks, we have noticed a couple different things:
- PH levels, at least with our local water, really needs to be checked ever 3-4 days. At least for us, we noticed that the PH increased to 8 after only 3 days. So we plan to check it a little more often than once a week.
- SPIN SPIN SPIN that tower! Regardless of whatever it says on the website, we found that turning the lettuce grow every day to be the best way to make sure every plant got enough sunlight! The reason this became pretty critical was because some of the plants were becoming “overwatered.” The sun dries out the soil a bit and helps the plants to use the water to grow. However, when some plants are getting less sunlight, they retain more water, and end up getting a little too much water…drowning the plants a bit. We found the shaded plants turning a little yellow and as we moved the lettuce grow around more often, it seemed to help a lot!
- The dolly is worth it! I wrote a post several days ago about making a dolly for the lettuce grow. If you have your Lettuce Grow outside, investing or building a dolly like we did, is truly a life saver. When the lettuce grow base has a lot of water in it, it is nearly impossible to move it. Not even my husband could lift it, and I’ve witnessed him picking up washers, dryers, and refrigerators without breaking a sweat.
- Don’t be afraid to use your own seeds and seed starters. We ordered the Rapid Rooters Plant Starters and seeds from Johnny Seeds to start creating our own starters. We bought several sets of Grow Cups from Lettuce Grow and some basic containers from Home Depot. We plan to create a rotation so that we can fresh organic veggies and lettuces year round!
- The seedlings that are sent from the Lettuce Grow company aren’t always in terrific shape when delivered. Sometimes the plants pull through, and other times, they don’t. We found, that some of the plants that were delivered didn’t make it soon after being placed in the tower. We went to their website and reported the issue. They immediately credited our account (within seconds) and we were able to order a new round of the plants that didn’t make it (namely the spinach and broccoli). Be prepared to take pictures of the failed plants though to send to the company. They require at least one picture.
Wood Family Garden 