Seed to Salad in 7 Days - Plus a Puzzle

Remember those seeds from last week? On January 13th I planted Bauer lettuce seeds and I already have lettuce. I'm proud to announce that I'm well on my way to opening my own grocery store that specializes in tiny portions of everything.

Planted exactly 7 days ago in my countertop hydroponic system I already have 2 leaves of lettuce on each plant.

With 3 plants, each having 2 leaves that gives me a total of 6 lettuce leaves. At today's prices I'd peg this lettuce as having the value of ¼ of a used Rolls Royce.

Don't be fooled by the 4 leaves you *think* you see on each plant. It looks like each plant has 4 leaves, but the first two leaves that pop up when a seed germinates are kind of like practice leaves. All the leaves that grow after that are called the "true leaves".

You can see them as the leaves that have little points on them. THOSE are the first true plant leaves.

As those leaves start to get bigger the plant will put out more sets of leaves and on and on until there's a full car. I mean head of lettuce.

To the back left of my Aerogarden you can also see a Sungold tomato seedling that I started 2 days before the lettuce. Both seeds were gifts, the Bauer lettuce from All America Selections and the tomato from reader Dan.

Last week when I mentioned I was going to plant some of my new seeds in my Aerogarden I had a few people asking if the photo I shared was actually of my tomatoes that I grew in my Aerogarden.

A perfectly logical question because it looks too good to be true.

It was indeed a tomato plant grown by me in this little countertop unit.

To the left was 35 days after planting my tomato seeds. If you zoom in you can see along with flowers, there's also a tiny tomato growing. AFTER 35 DAYS.

To the right ... I can't remember how many days after planting this was but I can tell you that whatever the date, it was the most exciting day on the calendar ever.

Read the post for proof here if you're getting the gardening itch as we enter the end of January.

I'm pretty excited to see how this Sungold cherry tomato does after 35 days. The tomato I grew in the photo above was a cherry tomato from Aerogarden's own seed pods. Obviously it grew very well.

It tasted O.K., good even, but didn't have a ton of flavour. Yet - still much better than the cherry tomatoes you buy at the grocery store in the winter.

Let's wrap this tomato and lettuce talk up and get to the rest of today.

THE 30 PIECE PUZZLE

The fast, easy one. Because you've got shit to do today.

THE 108 PIECE PUZZLE

The hard one. Because you've got shit to avoid today.

Have a good weekend!