Buying Lettuce for Senior Solo Folk

Every Supermarket and Fruit and Veg shops have packs of lettuce for customers.  There are packs of lettuce leaves, but mostly folk purchase a whole lettuce.  As someone who lives alone, and eats out occasionally, I regularly waste part of my lettuce.  So one day I bought a punnet of lettuce at Bunnings, and repotted the plants into larger pots. So I am growing lettuce and giving away

plants for seniors, especially if they are solo.

For months I was able to pull off two or more leaves, to rinse and add to my salad meal.  I loved have the choice to get very fresh lettuce.  Soon, the plants surprised me with differnt growth – with seeds eventually appearing.  Much to my surprise the wind has taken the seeds in different directions and within about 12 feet of my early pots, new lettuce plants are growing randomly amonst other plants.

So what should I do?

New Lettuce Plants, and Wait – there’s more.

They little plants kept growing, so I now have quite a few growing in individual pots – plenty to last me until the end of next summer, if I water them occasionally.  But the new plants are everywhere, so I decided to do something else.

I plan to  gift them to seniors living alone.

Lettuce in a Pot – planted 4 weeks ago

My plan to set up the plants.

What I decided to do was use some of my saved toilet roll thingies.  The cardboard little tube around which the white toilet paper lives.  I occasionally save them – for recycling and what better way to recycle them?

Prepping for my planting.

How do I do it?

I prepare by getting the toilet roll tube, a small piece of newspaper which I crush into a “ball” which becomes the bottom of the tube, and I put in about 2 cm of soil (yes, it comes from my worm farm, and then I push in the small lettuce plant that I have gently pulled from various areas of the garden.  Then I fill up with more soil.

These days I put the tube into  a small (old) plastic pot – add the water, and let it grow.

I have had 100% success so far.

Day One of the lettuce’s new life.

I am sure I can find new homes for my lettuce plants, when I introduce them to my new project.

No waste of lettuce leaves!  !!!