Congratulations on your new plants!

We know you’re going to fall in love with how easy it is to grow food with our proven system.

As promised, here’s some additional information for you regarding your plants:

Water

Water is the most critical input for your plant. We recommend checking your plants every other day (temperatures below 75F) for moisture content by feeling the bottom of the bag for moisture or using the finger method explained on the bag tag. If the temperature is above 75F, the plants need to be checked every day.  

Chard/Lettuce

These are cool-season plants and tend to struggle in prolonged heat. The best way to avoid stressing the plant during the hot days/weeks is to provide shade for the plant in the afternoon. An east-facing exposure is a great location for this plant. It provides ample sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon.

Harvesting (The best part of the process!)

There are a couple different ways to harvest chard and lettuce. You can allow the plants to fully mature and cut them off at the soil to harvest the whole plants, or you can cut as you need. The plants grow from the inside out meaning the leaves on the outside are the older leaves. If you use this second method for harvesting, simply rip off the leaves from the outside until you get what you need.

At some point in time, depending on the weather and environmental factors, your lettuce plant will try to reproduce by setting flowers (also called “bolting”). At that time, the leaves will become bitter and the plant will be done for the year as far as providing tasty leaves.  

Fun Fact! Chard is a biennial. This means it won’t go to seed (or at least it shouldn’t) for this year.

My mission is to help you become successful at growing food. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to call, email or text. Be sure to check out the website for updates on plants coming out in the near future as well as useful information for growing food.  

Thanks again for your purchase! Cheers to growing food!

Andy — aka MEG’s dad aka “Plant whisperer of Minnesota”