Growing a Salad Garden in Storage Containers

I finished planting our container salad garden this week. Like last year, I've got 6 of these plastic storage bins filled with salad greens on a stand on our deck. The stand is just outside the kitchen door. Even on wet spring days, I can still pop outside to grab some salad greens for dinner without getting soaked. I'm guessing we're about 3 weeks away from first harvest.

I've been pleased with how well these storage containers have held up outdoors in our winters here. They are just ordinary storage containers that one might normally use for out of season clothing or sewing/needlecraft supplies. I have them tucked under the eaves of the house, but they still froze on our coldest nights. Yet, none have cracked, so far.

I didn't bother changing the soil this spring, but instead I added a handful of vegetable fertilizer to each container before adding the seedlings. Keeping my fingers crossed that they'll do just fine this way.

This afternoon I started a second batch of lettuce from seeds under lights indoors. These will be replacement plants at the end of May, when the current plants are about done or have all been harvested.

You may wonder, why don't I just grow salad greens in the ground with my other vegetables? We have quite a slug problem in our area. A single slug could decimate a young lettuce patch in a week, here. I only plant the most hardy of our vegetables in the actual garden.

So, growing the salad greens on the deck in containers (on shelves, no less) keeps the greens safe from the slugs, as well as provides us with greens a little earlier than if they'd grown in the garden.

A detour I didn't want to take

Hi friends,

I've been under the weather since last Wednesday. I woke up sick Wednesday morning with a bad cold. I was just starting to feel better when I caught another virus (different symptoms). So here I am today, tired, but on the mend. There are some nasty viruses going 'round that aren't covid or the flu. Unfortunately, we don't get to choose when we get sick.

I'm slowly catching up on all work. On the positive side, my week is mostly free for doing this catching up. My husband is visiting family out of town for a week. This will mean fewer distractions for me as I work.

While I'm really happy for my husband to be able to spend time with family, there's always a little part of me that feels left behind. My husband's family is spread out across the country. About once a year, he goes to visit a couple or three.

So, to help myself feel not so left behind, I try to do some special things for myself and for my daughters. Today, right after my husband was dropped off at the airport, I headed to the grocery store. In addition to restocking a couple of items in the pantry, I also bought a few special foods for the three of us, including some frozen blueberries, frozen whole green beans (the thin kind), bacon, some good coffee, and fresh strawberries.

You've seen my grocery shopping lists. I just don't buy fresh strawberries out of season or not for a celebration. So these will be a treat with breakfast in the morning. In the store, I perused the bakery section closely. There were some yummy-looking treats. However, I have these dietary issues. Then I thought I should buy some frozen blueberries and make some scratch blueberry muffins for my daughters and me, using my preferred ingredients. Add in the bacon and our breakfasts are looking scrumptious for the next few days.

I used the green beans in tonight's dinner. I made salisbury steaks and mushroom gravy to go with garlic green beans and steamed rice. The package of ground beef was too big for us three for one dinner, so I made enough salisbury steaks and gravy for tomorrow night's meal as well.

The kitchen now cleaned up for the evening, and I'm exhausted. I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with more energy. Have a lovely rest of your evening.