When it means that we will have garden salads 6 weeks earlier than if I started from seeds right now.
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| This is supposed to be a six-pack, but I counted 15 seedlings in here. If I'm careful, i can tease each out separately, and have 15 heads of lettuce for $3. |
For various reasons, I didn't get lettuce seeds started indoors this winter to plant out this month. If I were to start seeds this week, I wouldn't have lettuce to harvest for another 8-10 weeks. With the seedlings, I should be able to harvest lettuce in about 3-4 weeks. In between those 3-4 weeks and the 8-10 weeks, I would still be needing leafy greens for my family; which means I would be buying lettuce or other greens in that time period. By buying the seedlings, I will save about a month of purchased greens, which could cost about $8, given two heads of lettuce or other greens per week, multiplied by 4 weeks, priced at about 99 cents/head. So, I come out $5 ahead after the cost of the seedlings.
There are times when buying the seedlings makes financial sense. Another example is in buying tomato seedlings. If those don't get started indoors early enough, there simply isn't time for them to produce very much, in short growing seasons.
I will be starting lettuce seeds in the same bed with the seedlings, so there won't be need to buy more lettuce seedlings.
P.S. if you couldn't access the poll yesterday, I've archived the results from yesterday and have opened the poll up for another day. There's a limit to how many people can access the poll, so this one may fill up too. Anyway, today I figured out how to embed it into my blog, to make things easier for you.
