Tray planting

So, been on track with various planter methods of growing.

Most recent is a seed tray that sells for $3.

Then half a coir block, which sells for $5 but since we only need half, its $2.50 used. Coir block (how do you pronounce that??) is sort of compressed material that becomes soil like material when you leave it in water to soak. So it's easy to carry home from the shop and much easier to fill planting containers with than soil from around your house (as in you don't have to leave holes everywhere and home soil is often full of grass seeds and is not terribly consistant in quality)

Then some lettuce seeds. I collected mine from a previous lettuce I grew that I allowed to go to seed. Just one plant produces more than you get in a packet if you buy from a store! The variety I grow is green mignonette. The snails seem to leave it alone and although strong if you eat it right from the plant (which is probably why the snails leave it alone!) if you soak the leaves in a bowl of water for a minute or two they become just a regular lettuce leaf in flavour. Actually, a bit tastier!

If we treat the lettuce as worth $1.50 each on maturation and plant eight of them in the planter, the first four basically cover the costs of materials (materials which can be used again multiple times!) and the next four result in about $6 saved in groceries - ie, a profit of $6! Per tray!

I actually had some lettuce seeds I'd casually sewn into a bucket of soil awhile back - there were too many and they were crowding each other. But that worked fine for the new trays as I just transplanted the already growing lettuce plants to it! Giving a big head start and allowing the lettuces in the bucket more room to breath (I will probably transplant more from the buckets elsewhere - it seems one bucket suits about one lettuce each. I've a good head growing in one particular bucket)