The Lettuce Stump Project Update

UPDATE:  Well, my poor little neglected lettuce stump never did develop into the lovely little romaine heart I had hoped for!  Instead, it's spindley and sad.  My husband said he went to a farm one time where they told him they only harvest lettuce three times, then it's done for.  I guess I got the 3rd cutting.  Either that, or this experiment is a total flop, lol!  Here's the sad little devil.  I still don't have all of my programs in my computer (like my photo editing software), so my pix will be worse than usual, lol!   :)

 When my husband and I first got married, I had a marvelous garden!  It was a dream garden, I swear!  Imagine....Four 6 x 6 one foot above ground boxes, all planted in tiers with tallest items to the North and shortest items to the South so the East to West sun could hit it all day, all in square foot gardening fashion.  Never heard of it?  Google it!  You'll be wondering why you ever wasted so much space doing traditional gardening.  I sure miss that free, organic home grown produce! Since having my son, he's always kept me so busy, I felt I didn't have time for a garden. Well, he's finally calmed down enough that I think I can handle it now.  Too bad it's too late in the season to start.  I have dreams of starting my seeds indoors come this next March!

Anyway, let's get to the real reason for this post.  As I was making a salad to go with my  homemade Hamburger Helper the other day, I got to thinking about my old garden, missing the home grown lettuce that was so mild and tender.  Not at all like the tough and bitter greens you get at the store.  I had purchased a 3-pack of Romaine hearts at Aldi and decided to cut them all up and clean them all at once.  As I was stuffing the stump (root) end of the lettuce back into the bag to throw away, two of them fell out on the floor.  Turns out there was a hole in the bag.  I threw them in the trash and as I grabbed the clean one out of the sink, I thought....wait a minute!  I remember when I had my lettuce in my garden and I was always amazed at when you cut the lettuce off at soil level, a few days later, you could harvest more all over again!  I love that about lettuce.  It's the gift that keeps on giving.

I took the last stump (probably should've grabbed the ones out of the trash, too) and cut off the root end to get a clean cut.  I put it in a small glass of water on the sink, below the window.  I was hoping it might sprout some new leaves like my old garden used to.  I could have sworn I took a picture of the first day, but it turns out, I can't find it.  Anyway, you can imagine that it was cut straight across the top like a lettuce flat top haircut.  Below is a picture of the same lettuce 24 hours later.  It actually grew between 1/4-1/2" in a day!  (See how it's mounded in the center!) I was so excited!  I'm not sure I'll have enough to make anything out of it, but it's a fun experiment!  I'll keep you posted as to how it grows for me. I'm not sure it's necessary, but I've been changing the water each night. Pretty cool, huh?  Man, that sure was a long story for one little picture.  Thanks for indulging me.  (Okay, let's ignore the dead leaves on the sunflower plant that my son brought home from summer school)

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