Planting Lettuce

Planting lettuce is really something you can do for most of the year if you live in the southern United States. If you have a greenhouse, you can grow it all year long in Texas.

Here is one of our lettuce hauls. We love it and so do our birds and rabbits.

Planting Lettuce - 4/18/22-4/24/22

Monday, April 18, 2022 - Planting Lettuce

35 years ago, we were married at First Church of the Nazarene in El Paso, TX. Here we are 35 years later, living and working on a farm.

Yours truly and David at a nice place in San Antonio. I am excited to be getting a nice gift. David is too kind.

Happy 35th wedding anniversary to David and Juanita. Yes, 35 years ago today, I walked down the aisle to marry David. It really seems like just yesterday but it wasn't.

David took me out to Chama Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse in San Antonio for lunch today. It was delicious. He also stopped by Americus Diamonds to spoil me.

While we were eating, the table next to ours had a wedding party with a bride and groom. David paid for their whole party but told the waiter not to tell. Of course the waiter told them. The bride and groom came over and thanked them so we told that 35 years ago today we were married. Then the parents came over to thank us.

The waiter brought us this beautiful cake to celebrate our 35 years as husband and wife.

Yes, we have both put on a lot of weight in 35 years but give us a break. 354 years is a record these days.

We got back to the farm today around 3pm. Nacho was here all day, mowing and fixing watering fixtures. The electricians were here again today adding more outlets out on the property. Encino Pest Control came to spray the commercial kitchen.

Several customers came by to get seeds. Even the 2022 Poteet Strawberry Festival Queen stopped by to get some seeds today with her grandfather. Had I known who she was, I would have taken a photo but I did not know until she left.

This coming weekend is the Poteet Strawberry Festival. It has not taken place since 2019. Normally, it takes place on the first weekend of April. This year, it is late.

I filled the pond and watered all of the plants in my greenhouse. Matthew washed out all of the chicken waterers today. He also picked the produce and helped pull seed orders.

Planting Lettuce

We've been planting lettuce in reds and greens in our hoop houses as well as in our uncovered raised beds. Planting lettuce will insure you get healthy greens.

We have been planting lettuce all over the farm. The main trick to planting lettuce is to plant a week's worth every week so that you have ripened lettuce once a week. Here is a wonderful article on Planting And Growing Lettuce written by David.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022 - Planting Lettuce

Planting lettuce makes for delicious spring and summer salads. Planting lettuce yielded this bowl of lettuce leaves which are so healthy.

Planting lettuce makes for delicious spring and summer salads. Planting lettuce is easy when there are so many varieties to choose from. Planting lettuce should be done every week during spring and summer.

Happy Tuesday. As I write, it is 4:30pm. It is finally raining a bit, not much, but the ground is completely wet. It has been cloudy and cool all day long. Nacho came out early this morning to work some more on the irrigation system. Matt helped him.David left the farm at 7:30am for a dental appointment. He was feeling something jagged in his mouth. I am still not sure what happened but the dentist fixed it up.

I left the farm at 9:30am for a hair appointment. After that, I stopped by Walmart for a few things. Then I came home and had a sandwich in the house and let the dogs out and back in. Around 2:30pm, I got back to the store. I had to answer some emails, refund and fix some orders, do some things for David and wait on several customers.

Most of our staff has now gone home. Sadly, we had to let two of them go today. That is always difficult to do.Soon, I will close up shop and go collect eggs. By the way, I have eight dozen eggs in my refrigerator. For some reason, no one is buying eggs this week. What is up with that? I am really not sure.

The pond is looking good. No snakes. All eight of the fish are in their, happily swimming around, having fun. Some of the vegetables in the raised beds are looking kind of yellow. They were planted when it was hot and then it got cold so I think it ruined a bunch of them. We may have to pull them up and start all over again. I was going to be planting lettuce this afternoon but it is wet so I will put that off for later.

A bunch of our citrus trees and our fig trees died with all of the freezes we had this past winter so we are going to have to pull them up and replace them with trees that do okay in the cold. I bought two new baby Meyer lemon trees that will grow in the greenhouse. The plants that we transplanted into the big ceramic pots are doing well. I have daisy plants and cosmos plants coming up in two of them.

David says he ordered me a housekeeper for tomorrow. Most of them are fine but when you hire them on their own, not through the online agency, they are a problem. The first time they come, they make your house look great and they say, you should hire me away from the agency. We have done that with several of them and then they come when they feel like it, don't answer when you call, don't dust half of the things in your house and won't vacuum your couches. If I had time to do the cleaning, I would like I used to. Now, I spent most of my time in the store and when I am home, I spend a lot of time on the computer.

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Please do us a favor and spread the word about us. Let people know we have a wonderful variety of heirloom seeds and that we can ship all over the USA. Also let them know that we have a seed store filled with their favorite seeds. #seedstore #davidsgardenseeds #buylocal #smallbusiness

Thank you for spreading the good word about us.

Wednesday, April 20, 2022 - Planting Lettuce

In our orchard between rows are our strawberry plants among other things.

It's already Wednesday! How can this be? I woke up hungry and hot at 5:44am. I got up and got some apple juice out of the fridge. Everyone is still sleeping. I really want to go back to sleep, too. But I am awake and working...

Breakfast is done. It is 8:40am and David just got a notification that the housekeeper he ordered for 9am is not coming. He goes through what used to be Angie's List and no housekeeper there would accept the job so he has to re-book for another day. Why bother? I think we have used them all. Most would come out and do a good job the first time and then afterwards wouldn't do so good and then stop coming and someone new would come out.

I am not sure why that is. We have been good to them, even tipping them and giving them food and drinks.

Today it feels humid and ugly outside. I have to go over to the store. I am disappointed about the housekeeper and about the humid weather.

At 9am, the guy from some media company who showed up a few weeks ago, came by to talk to Matthew about us doing streaming TV commercials. Just $6200 a month for 110,000 impressions. Sounds like a total rip off and way beyond our budget. We are getting a lot of bang for our buck on MeTV running a real TV commercial for a third of the price. He must think we are made of money, which we are not. We would have to lay off our whole staff to afford that. Only 110,000 impressions for all of that money? No, thank you.

The rest of the day was filled with orders and some customers.

It was hot and humid in the morning and then it got windy and stayed windy all day long. No rain.

Thursday, April 21, 2022 - Planting Lettuce

Good Thursday morning. The air is thick with humidity. It is 74° and is supposed to get up to 91° today. No rain is expected but it feels so wet. We are under a burn ban. There have been a lot of out of control fires in the area because people have been burning anyway. Everything is so dry.

I need to get out in the greenhouse and do some work today as well as get all of the trash out by this afternoon for tomorrow morning's trash run. There are six loads of laundry that need to be folded and put away and I need to try and clean again. With all of the animals we have in our house, it should be vacuumed every day but who has the time? I cannot believe that we cannot get a person to come in here once a week and clean this house. Nobody wants to work anymore.

Today, Dawson starts part time with us again. Last summer, Dawson worked outdoors for us and he came by yesterday afternoon to talk with David about working for us again.

So Dawson and Matt worked outside until noon. Dawson went home and Matt continued doing things out back. It stayed overcast all day long with a few sprinkles here and there.

We had few customers throughout the day. The Poteet Strawberry Festival starts tonight.

David has ordered another housekeeper through what used to be Angie's List for tomorrow.

Friday, April 22, 2022 - Planting Lettuce

Good Friday morning. Well, Angie's List once again emailed saying they cannot send anyone here. I guess we went through all the housekeepers we have. We are nice. We don't yell and we tip but none of them will come back. We have a nice home although it is a bit of a drive. Nobody wants to work.

I sent out a bunch of seed orders, priced a lot of snacks and canned food including our newly pickled asparagus and I changed the price of our eggs from $3.55 back to $3.45. I have not sold one dozen eggs since I changed the price up to $3.55 a few weeks ago. That is ridiculous. In some parts of the country, people are paying $6 a dozen for eggs like mine but here, no one will pay more than $3.45. One farmer I know is selling hers for just $3 a dozen. The price of feed is high so I am not sure how or why she is doing that.

We had no real customers today. Late this afternoon, two ladies came to the store. They asked questions about the seeds and looked for about 30 minutes. Then they left without buying anything. Not sure if the lack of customers is because planting season is about over or because of the Strawberry Festival going on now in Poteet.

I spent the day filling orders, pulling orders, and restocking the store. I will continue tomorrow. Matt got to pull some orders but he spent most of the day out and about doing things for David. I had no assistants to help me today.

Saturday, April 23, 2022 - Strawberry Festival

Good morning. Shay is on her way so I will have an assistant today. Matt and Jay have to go to the Strawberry Festival this afternoon to bid on a flat of berries for David's Garden Seeds®. The money goes toward scholarships for local kids to go to college. This will be our first year to bid on a flat.

Meanwhile, the farm store will be open today from 10am until 4pm unless no one shows up at all. Then we will close early. I have lots of things to do at the house, like cleaning it and doing laundry, if no one comes. I am thinking that it is close to the end of the planting season which is why no one is coming anymore on Saturdays. When that happens, we will stop opening on Saturdays until the fall planting season starts in August.

It is overcast this morning and 72°. It looks like it will rain, but it is not supposed to. It has been looking like this every single morning for the past two to three weeks but we have gotten very little moisture. We need a solid week of rain because everything is dry. We are in another burn ban because of the bad drought.

Everyone is fed inside and out. I need to get dressed for opening the store. There is so much to do in here, especially now that we cannot find anyone to clean our home. I will have to start doing it myself but how when all of my time is spent in that store?

It was a very slow day in the store. We should have been out in the yard planting lettuce and things but we did get a lot of seed orders done. We entertained three customers only. I think next year, we need to close for Easter weekend and for Strawberry Festival weekend because everyone is shopping for clothes and candy and attending the Festival.

Matt in our parking lot with the auction tickets and our official David's Garden Seeds® trucker cap. I offered one to Jay as well for the auction, but he would not wear it.

Today is the main day of the Poteet Strawberry Festival. It is also the day of the strawberry auction for college scholarships. We asked our son, Matt and one of our managers, Jay, to go and bid for us.

Poteet Strawberry Festival Auction banner

Jay with a turkey leg, his own black cap, and the bottle of red strawberry wine for us before it broke sitting in the auction area.

It seems that the grocery store chain, HEB, wanted to buy all of the strawberries. They won every flat, including $6,000.00 for the grand prize strawberry winners. We were supposed to bid on the strawberries from Donovan Garcia Farms. Every time we did, HEB bid higher. We got up to $1,700.00 when HEB sent someone over to Matthew asking if we would split the flat (48 pints). So we paid $1,000.00 and HEB paid $1,000.00 for the flat. We got half (24 pints) for $1,000.00. Again, the money goes to local college scholarships so it is helping the community.

Here is the $1000 half flat we got in the auction.

One of the giant berries in my hand so you can get an idea.

Matt did not get back to the farm until almost 7pm. He brought the half flat packed with large, juicy, sweet berries that were already getting soft because they had to be turned in days ago to qualify to be in the auction. They are delicious. Of course, after taking photos, we all ate some. So yummy. Matt also brought us a small goodie bag with some snacks and a bottle of strawberry wine. It is white wine. Matt said they gave us a bottle of red strawberry wine but Jay was carrying it and fell over something on the floor, crushing the bottle of wine on a table and cutting his finger.

Then they got the second bottle which is white. We will have to try it. We really don't care for wine but we will give it a shot.

Svengoolie was again about Frankenstein so David said no. He has had it with week after week of the same thing, especially since the whole month of October was also about Frankenstein. We watched Mission Impossible instead.

Planting Lettuce

This entire week we were supposed to talk about planting lettuce but that did not happen as much as I wanted. It has been a strange week. In the past nine days, we lost three employees and one has been on a week long vacation.

Planting lettuce is a wonderful thing to do for your family. Salad is a great way to start each dinner so your family is getting something green and delicious. You can eat lettuce plain or add many things to it for fun, including everyone's favorite, ranch dressing. When I was a kid, there was no such thing. We had French, Red Russian, Italian, Catalina, or an oil and vinegar mix. God bless whoever invented Ranch! I remember as a teenager, the first bottle of ranch came out and we tried it. So good!

Planting lettuce goes with planting cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes, both great items to add to your lettuce. Planting lettuce can include many varieties of lettuce to mix together. Of course, we have already done that for you as well with our lettuce mix seeds. Planting spinach is also a great thing to do when planting lettuce as spinach leaves make a great salad.

Sunday, April 24, 2022 - Not Planting Lettuce Today

Part of the half flat of expensive strawberries that I cut up this morning.

These berries are from our garden out back in the orchard.

Hello and welcome to Sunday at our house today. I have fed and watered all of the animals, both in and out. David made coffee and eggs. I put away the dishes in the dishwasher and loaded it up again. I also found an entry rug with dog pee on it this morning so I washed it and hung it to dry.

Instead of going to a new church, we took the day off. We tackled the half flat of strawberries and we also cut up the berries from our garden. I have one big bowl for today and the rest I froze for later.

After that, we went to Walmart for some groceries. It is now 1pm and the groceries are put away. I have six loads of laundry to fold and I need to hang up David's new clothes that I bought him for our anniversary. He loves Hawaiian shirts so I got him a bunch as well as a few work shirts for gardening and some light weight pants for summer.

I also will make some biscuits for strawberry shortcakes this afternoon. I have a beautiful raw chicken that I will be making for dinner this evening.

Ethel has a followup vet appointment tomorrow and tomorrow is payday. Wednesday we will have a birthday potluck. David is making sweet and sour pork for it.

It is hot and humid. It looks like rain but, once again, no rain.

So here I am working on the computer and I am getting messages from someone who bought a flower seed that I have never grown. She wants to know if the leaves look right. I told her I have not grown it before but when I google it, I see similar photos. Now she is saying she is with a university and they take this seriously and she is going to contact her vendor at David's. Who would that be? What is "David's"? If she means us, she does not have a vendor at David's.

She needs to wait and see if it grows into an aster. If not, then she should let us know. She sent me a photo of some little green stems with tiny leaves in a small pot. Who can tell anything from that? We sell thousands of these and this is the first complaint we have received on an aster. Again, having never grown them before, I don't know what the leaves should look like. It is Sunday, the one day where I should not have to deal with people since I already work six days a week and now she is going back and forth with me about how she is disappointed in my response. And she is not even my mother! I was being honest with her. The joys of small business.

I have asked her twice if she bought from our website or from Amazon and what her order number is. She will not give me the information so I can't even look it up to see if she bought from us. Some people get our seed packets and sell them on Amazon and on Sears and other sites. We find our name all over but it doesn't mean they are from us.

I guess this is my fault because I chose to answer her on my only day off. No more. If you contact me on social media on Saturday or Sunday or after or before business hours Monday through Friday, that is my time so I will no longer answer you until the next business day. This is just getting to be too much. I will get messages from customers or potential customers after pm, sometimes at 3:30am. That is crazy.

Y'all, I have a life outside of David's Garden Seeds® Farm Store. I have a farm, a husband, 6 indoor pets, and 51 outdoor animals to take care of, not to mention our home, yard, laundry, and garden.

I just made sweet biscuits for strawberry shortcake. They are pretty good! I have to go collect eggs now and take care of my animals.

Return from Planting Lettuce to Business Growth

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