It’s been 11 days since my last post. Not dead, just dazed: by work deadlines, by the ever-increasing daylight and, lately, by the lettuce tree in our living room. (See photo at left.)

Yep, that’s lettuce. It began its life late last year as a romaine seed in a pot in our kitchen, because DF wondered whether it would grow indoors.

Spoiler alert: It did.

Initially the pot stood by a big window on our kitchen table. The lettuce likely wouldn’t have made it on daylight alone, thanks both to short days and low winter light levels.

They can get pretty darned low; as this Facebook post from Alaska Climate Info notes, on winter solstice the sun was 5.5 degrees above the horizon. Compare that to winter sun angles in Florida, which are as high as 38 degrees.

Fortunately, the lettuce stood right next to the Aerogarden hydroponic setup in which DF was growing Tumbling Tom cherry tomatoes. This setup features lights that are on for as long as we are up.

Although the romaine wasn’t directly under those grow lights, it got enough to survive. As you can see.

 

 

 

We’ve been picking leaves off it for sandwiches and burgers, and the occasional small salad. Neither of us can remember when it got big enough for us to do so.

But here’s the thing: It kept on getting big. How big? So glad you asked.

This morning, from base to the newest little baby leaves sprouting at the top, the romaine measured 45 inches. Its lanky stem looks something like the truffula tree from the Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax.”

 

 

Incidentally, that second plant is a tomato seedling that mysteriously hatched a month or so ago. That’s probably due to the fact that we reuse greenhouse soil. We have no idea what kind, but I’m hoping for Cherokee Purple or Black Prince; we can never get enough of those.

 

Honeymoon salad

 

I never thought of lettuce a nearly four-foot-tall plant. Normally we grow it in our garden, and pull off leaves as needed. When the plant starts looking tired or begins to hint at bolting, we cut the entire lettuce off at the base.

But we leave the base in the ground, where it will begin sending up new leaves. And when that plant gives up the ghost, we’re still not finished: DF brings the stem indoors and cuts it up to fit in the boiling bag. We use everything about the pig, including the squeal.

Not sure whether this really old romaine stem will be boil-able. It might have become bitter after all these months. (Winter has that effect on Alaskans, too.) Then again, with all the other stuff in there who could tell?

Especially if this truffula tree keeps producing until fall, when we’ll have a bunch of apple cores to add to the mix. (DF cuts up the apples and mixes them with sugar, spices and a little flour, then freezes them in pie-shaped amounts.) By then the romaine might be tall enough to need support, or possibly to get a basketball scholarship.

Until then, we’ll continue to have honeymoon salad: Lettuce alone.

Readers: Ever had a plant get weird on you (in a good way) or otherwise surprise you?

 

Related reading:

• Drinking from the hose, eating from the dirt
• Salad days
• Physics and frugality
• The quinoa baffler