Lettuce Seeds

Thanks to my sister, I now have a garden on my back porch.

The ‘garden’ is six pots full of dirt sitting on my backyard—two trays made from a plastic donut box and four large yogurt containers. They've been sitting out there for about a week, getting a bit of rain to water them and a bit of sunshine on the nicer days.

The garden started last year. After a couple months in our apartment, all the greenery started growing on me, and I needed some flowers to add a bit of color. Over the summer, we hosted a couple marigolds, a pot of chives, and a few other flowers on our porch rail. Unfortunately, we don’t get much sunlight through the day. By about three o’clock, the sun does move into a gap in the trees, but that only last a couple of hours.

The chives lasted the longest, even moving inside once the weather got cold, but they finally dried up around December.

This year, I’m trying again—and I’m trying to stick with plants that only need partial sun. So far, that means lettuce, spinach, and peas. Tomatoes are out, and I’m only trying peas because I know they are a cool weather crop. We’ll see if that also means ‘cool-weather-growing-in-warm-weather-without-much-sun crop.’

Then we'll see if I can remember to water the plants, without over-watering them.

At least I have lettuce sprouts for now. That’s a good sign, right?