[KarenParticipant]

Just gotten “How to create a Vegetable Garden” by Charles… love it! loads more details and pics on creating beds and about sowing information… A definite MUST-HAVE!

If you’re interested in biodynamics…. try Gardening for Life – The Biodynamic Way by Maria Thun (think it´s kinda difficult to get hold of`) and Culture and Horticulture – The Classic Guide to Biodynamic and Organic Gardening by Wolf D. Storl

[KarenParticipant]

Recently ordered “How to create a new Vegetable Garden”…. had a thorough look…. It´s awesome! A grrrreat more detailed book with loads of pics about setting up beds etc… Definitely a must have! An added extra additions and improvements to the older books…. a MUST-HAVE! 🙂

[KarenParticipant]

Most of our beds are about 6in high too…. with the exception of our very first asparagus bed at 13inch! Gonna definitely try out our remaining patch with no sides….Cant wait to get started! 🙂

[KarenParticipant]

I have read Masanobu Fukuoka: One Straw Revolution… pretty interesting read I gotta say… go for it 🙂

[KarenParticipant]

Thanks Charles for the pic… I went through several of your videos and I am so amazed by how clean your soils are especially those that aren’t in raised beds!

Have you encountered any differences between growing lettuces and salads or even other types of veg in raised beds and non-raised beds?

[KarenParticipant]

Yikes!

Hello bluebell…

We love our raised beds… we have 6 beds with asparagus growing in them and I swear I have never watered them after having established them in the beds with loads of compost and rotted horse manure.

I am going to try to water the salad and lettuce a little more often now and try our the experiments as mentioned above.

We created our raised beds as I didn’t have the patience (I would have gone stir crazy waiting!) to wait out to weed/mulch out for about a year as suggested by Charles. And it´s a whole lot easier to mow between the beds.

Can´t wait for the weather to warm up! My fingers are itching to go now!

[KarenParticipant]

Haha… 🙂 guilty as charged.

I am growing quite a fair variety of salads and spinach… from what I can gather from your last message is “moist compost” might be the reason?

All or most of my plants are grown in raised beds and I hardly ever water them after a hard watering for a week or 2 to getting them settled in as seedlings. Perhaps I need to constantly keep the salad and lettuce beds moist and wet?

I will experiment and try a batch with constant watering and another without as well. I will also attempt to plant some in direct sunlight and shaded areas. I hardly water my plants as the beds are filled with compost and I have always believed in plants searching deep into the soil for water, unless there is a really bad dry spell and that the plants look like they really need help.

In any case… thank you for your thoughts and input and will try out the above experiments.

[KarenParticipant]

Hello again,

Thanks for replying… much appreciated. I am actually living in Germany (about 90km south of Berlin) I do believe our temperatures are somewhat quite similar to that of England.

The lettuces and salad leaves were grown in raised beds with loads of compost (well rotted horse manure and composted materials). Can and are they supposed to be grown in direct sunlight or better in shaded areas? I remembered clearly too we had the same exact problem with the bitterness when we were growing them in New Zealand.

Would you also be able to tell me how long the harvest period of your lettuces before they got bitter? I do believe too that there are salads/lettuces for different seasons…. e.g. summer and winter lettuce varieties

I do own a copy of your Winter Vegetables book and Salad Leaves for All Season. I guess I should have another look at them… however I never was able to find anything about the causes of bitterness in lettuces. Although I have read somewhere in the internet that lettuces are bitter when a thick white liquid oozes out when plucked. Due to the maturation of the plant .

My apologies for ranting on. I am actually curious and surprised that not many people have my similar problem. I am also hoping to be able to provide a constant supply of salad leaves to our family restaurant.

Thanks again for taking the time and effort to reply to my question.

cheers!
Karen

[KarenParticipant]

Hello Maxine,

Definitely the “Charles Dowding´s Vegetable Course” and “Organic Gardening – The natural no-dig way”

cheers!
Karen

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