Beginning Gardeners - Growing Lettuce and Radishes for Fresh Salads

Beginning gardeners are on the lookout for crops that are easy to grow, can be grown without a lot of effort, and will yield a harvest in a relatively short time.  No one wants to wait months to see the results from their garden the first time you try it.  Here's some ideas that you can start with while there is still frost on the ground in the morning, and will have you eating fresh salad fixings while the morning air is still crisp.

In addition, a great way to begin gardening is to start with a container garden, which can be put about anywhere like a patio or balcony, and doesn't require a lot of tilling or soil preparation.  A container garden will let you put a garden where the sun fits the needs of the vegetables, not just the requirements of your landscape scheme.

2 crops that fit this description are radishes and lettuce.  If you plant the 2 of these, you can harvest your own garden.  There are 4 main types of lettuce you can grow, but for a beginner leaf lettuce in particular is easy to grow.

Both lettuce and radishes tolerate the cool weather well.  You can start them up to 4 weeks before the last frost date in your area, and they can both withstand some light frost conditions, so a late frost won't ruin your crops, yet you can get the jump on spring planting.

Even though it's a root crop, radishes have a relatively shallow root system, and lettuce does as well, so a container with a soil depth of 8 to 10 inches can successfully grow these crops.  Or if you are preparing a fresh plot of your yard for gardening you don't have to dig a large area or dig that deep.  Both can be planted in wide rows or using the square foot gardening approach, so you can start with relatively little space.

Both are relatively light feeders and will do well in marginal soils, so adding a slow release fertilizer at planting time is about all that's needed, and neither has a real problem with pests or diseases.

Radishes can be harvested in as little as 25 days after planting, and lettuce as soon as 45 days, depending on the variety.  With leave lettuce the plant will continue to grow even as you are harvesting it, so you don't have just the one head of lettuce and then you are done.

Either of these will do well with partial shade, needing only about 5 to 6 hours of sunlight a day, so the side of a building that's shaded part of the day can work well.  The biggest problem with both these crops is that they don't do well in summer heat, especially in the south, but in other areas you can stagger the plantings and harvest your bounty for months.