The same thing happened to me too this year. I have used Miracle-Gro for years. This year,like an idiot, I decided to try Sta-Green.I used it once years ago and did not like it then. The squirrels love it! I may have to repot my potted plants. Right now I am putting huge quantities of cayenne pepper in the pots. At least that works.

Posts show up after you RELOAD OR REFRESH the pages. Usually (internet browser dependent) you see a different color text for threads that have new messages posted vs. older threads with no new posts. If you post a new message, you have to click on the PREVIEW and tghen SUBMIT MESSAGE to get it to SAVE to the forum. Once there, you simply go back to the main thread page and REFRESH. It should show new posts in any threads. To find old posts, doing simple searches on a couple of key words is best. For instance if you wanted to see things about harvesting greens, you would type in the search window the words 'harvest greens', and it should bring up threads with that text in them. I grew just 'gourmet salad greens' last summer. I planted twice, the first ones planted the end of May lasted until August. By then some of them were sending up flower and seed stalks which I pluck off. I planted a small amount of seeds again in mid August and had more greens, mostly bib, red leaf, and several other gourmet type greens. All made a great salad. I do not spray anything and not much was chewed or damaged. I picked so much I was gving away many 2 gallon bags packed tightly with them. I would not use any cutters, but instead snap off the tender leaves near their bases. The leaves were rinsed off and placed in small batches into a salad spinner to get excess water off them. They remained quite crisp for nearly 4 days in the fridge if bagged. I only pick the larger leaves of most. A few days, and new leaves show up and the previously smaller ones are now bigger and are picked. Depending on the type of greens, you should be able to pick almost every other day once they start to come in. I had about 20 locations where I put in several different kinds of seeds in the same spots, so each location had a nice selection to choose from. All matured quite well together.

I work for a woman at a local farm who sells lettuces. We discussed for the entire season about selling salad mixes, but she moves a bit slowly on these things, lol. But, that being said, at the end of the season, she did sow some lettuces near the end of the market season to give this idea a try. She did not try anything in particularly fancy, just the same lettuces we had been selling as heads, but she cut them small - maybe two inches. Some of the varieties we grew included Jericho, New Red Fire, Nevada, Tropicana, Black Seeded Simpson, Magenta, Winter Density, and a red-speckled variety which I can't remember the name of. I don't know if all of these were in the mix, but those are some of varieties we grew. I believe she may have put a few mustard leaves and mizuna in there too, but I honestly don't remember. The one day we did this I was also harvesting our usual greens, so I'm not exactly sure if the mustard, etc. went into the mix, but I do think I was cutting small leaves, so maybe. These were cut out of the field, as opposed to the baby lettuce leaves being from the greenhouse. While we discussed packaging for quite awhile, again, this was a last-minute experiment, so we just put the mixes in plastic bags. We washed the leaves, she weighed them, and we bagged them. I don't recall the weight - maybe 4 ounces?? Despite the fact that they didn't look all that fancy, just being in clear plastic bags, she told me they sold like hotcakes at the market. I wasn't at market with her that day, and I don't recall how much she sold them for (although I'm sure she underpriced them, lol). I was not at all surprised they sold so well. I was glad she had finally taken the plunge with this idea, and I'm hoping we expand on it this coming season. After all, these mixes are so popular in the stores. In some ways, they are somewhat labor intensive - cutting the little leaves, washing, weighing, bagging/packaging, sowing every week, etc. But on the other hand, if we grow just in the greenhouse in trays, we don't have to plant out and weed, etc. I'm hoping she spends a bit and buys nicer packaging - although, we do both think environmentally, and she is trying to find perhaps a compostable package, which of course costs more. But I think packaging will help the presentation - not that it seemed to need the help! Also, if we go this route, she may buy seeds for a salad mix, as opposed to sowing the separate varieties. Johnny's has some nice mixes she is looking at. Sorry, I know I rambled a bit, but I love lettuce, lol. I love to eat it, I love the look of it, and I really enjoy helping this woman grow it. Oh, one last thing. I didn't see the final package, but she told me she put some nasturtiums on top of the greens for a bit of color. Hoped this helped a bit, and hope I didn't ramble on too long! :) Dee

Sold 1 gal of salad mix - and I mixed the arugula, etc. in with it, so didn't sell quarts separately. I did get $3 for that gallon, but I had spent $8 on green lettuce to round out my greens (for some reason only Red Salad Bowl and arugula was coming up from the packet I sowed - twice). Sold all my radishes for 25 cents each but it seems all anyone wanted today was Blackberry Preserves - and a couple jars of strawberry jam. Didn't seem to have as many vendors today, entertainment never showed up (though they did get a sub about halfway through, played recorded music til then, weird playlist, Rolling Stones and Bing Crosby). Hard to tell, but most customers were just picking up CSA shares from 1 farm, poking around the others. Not as many as I would have expected day before holiday. Italian ice guy did a good business near 90 and muggy. At least it didn't rain. I don't think I'll go again (paying by the week) until I have lots of summer veggies, but wonder if the other farms (2 certified organic, 1 like me no spray - the guy who sells maple syrup plus veggies - and 1 conventional) have a lock on the veggie market at this location?