You will recall, that this spring, I bought a little raised bed with a greenhouse cover in the hopes of being more successful with lettuce and spinach. Late spring here can get quite hot, so sowing direct outside without a little cover doesn’t generally give it much time to grow before it gets too hot and the plants bolt.

It was somewhat successful – I got a couple small heads of lettuce (enough for a couple personal salads), and some nice baby lettuce to throw in meals. But it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped.

Anyway, months ago, I’d pulled out what spinach remained. The lettuce was already long gone. So imagine my surprise, when around Halloween – noticed a little head of lettuce growing – and the greenhouse top wasn’t even on. It must have been from a seed that didn’t germinate. I didn’t think much of it. Most of the garden was already shutting down. Then we got all that snow. And plenty of frost.

So imagine my surprise, when I was out filling up Squirrelington’s on the weekend and saw this…

Isn’t that just the happiest little bunch of lettuce? How it survived I have no idea… but I’m going to put the green house lid on and see if I can get it to a decent size.

And it has me thinking… maybe I can sow my lettuce and spinach even earlier than I thought! Definitely something to try next year.