Wednesday, December 03, 2008

December Mesclun Harvest






















The mesclun mix is growing very well despite the cold, foggy weather. Tonight, I filled a big colander with fresh lettuce, chicory, escarole, arugula, and frisée (curled endive). It's so nice to have fresh greens when the store-bought lettuces often wilt into mush, which is not exactly appetizing.

Does anyone here have experience growing lettuce and mesclun? I am having aphid problems and could use some advice.

5 comments:

Dan said...

Your lettuce looks very good. Mixed greens is what I wanted to grow in my cold frame but unfortunately it has been to cold to start anything.

There is a couple ways to take care of aphids in an organic manner.

The first being to just spray them off with a strong stream of water.

You can also mix a couple tablespoons of either insecticidal soap or dish soap with water in an spray bottle and spray them down. This will kill adults as well as kill eggs.

Joe said...

Thanks for the advice!

Yeah, I had heard about the soap method but I wanted to make sure I knew what type of soap to use. I will try it.

Dan said...

The pro's would recommend insecticidal soap as it is milder and will not burn the leaves. I have always just used dish soap, for dish soap I would mix 1 tablespoon per 1/4 gallon(4 cups) of water. It has always done the trick.

Joe said...

Great, that's good information to keep in mind.

tina said...

I have some growing in a pot on the south side of my home. It is only about 1/2 tall. Guess you can't really say that is growing, but it is green. With aphids just spray or wash them off with water. They like the lush new growth.