Save Water! Let's lettuce.

Are you looking to save water? Plant lettuce.

Huh? ‘Scuse me? Lettuce?

Turns out that growing lettuce at home (one of the easier edible plants anyone can grow) actually saves lots of water. Here’s why…

• Most farmers water their crops with overhead sprinklers, losing a great deal of moisture to evaporation. At home you can use drip irrigation and mulch the soil extensively, only watering overhead on the hottest of days.
• Immediately after harvest, a head of lettuce is given a bath. The same head is often washed again at the market and then is spritzed with more water as it sits awaiting purchase. At home you’ll simply bring in a few leaves from the garden, give them a quick rinse and toss them into the salad bowl.
• Using the age-old technique, “cut and come again,” the cook only harvests whatever he plans on eating at the next meal rather than lopping off an entire head of lettuce leaves all-at-once. You then allow the lettuce plant to re-grow itself. Most types of lettuces respond well to this practice, but loose-leaf lettuces (like Renee’s Garden, Heirloom Cutting Mix – available at Common Ground in seed packets) are the most ideally suited. By only picking a few leaves at any one time, the home gardener ends up using water more frugally, because established plants can actually help conserve soil moisture through shading and self-mulching.
• Lettuce is a perfect choice for container gardens. Keeping a half-whiskey barrel planted up with bright red Flame lettuce outside the back door, right where it’s certain to be seen, means you’re very likely to eat it all. It’s a scenario wherein every drop of water that went into your salad will be present and accounted for.

Yes, there are many ways we’ll be asked to conserve water this year (and, most likely, in the years to follow), but one of the most rewarding ways you can save water is by growing some food to eat in your very own yard.