Start lettuce, cabbage seeds now

As it happens, all of the above listed plants are really easy to grow with the exception of the length of time one must care for them before they can be transplanted outdoors. But, if you can overcome that roadblock, growing your own of any of these has some real advantages.

For one, you can choose from so many varieties that you simply will not see at your favorite nurseries. They just don't have time or room to grow everything.

More important, if you grow your own, you can stagger planting times in order to stagger the harvest over a longer period of time. If you only buy from nurseries, the plants you buy must be harvested at the same time. Start two broccoli seeds every few days, for example (or six every week), and you will have florets from mid-August clear through the first hard frost. If you like broccoli, this can be a great thing.

Another great thing about starting cole crops and lettuces from seed is they don't need pinching and can be started in individual containers so they won't need transplanting while they are indoors. In short, they are easy.

Then too, consider that you probably won't use all the seeds of your cole crops. The leftovers can be started outdoors and you can develop a second crop altogether. With the exception of cauliflower, these items will all withstand a few frosts and may even end up a bit tastier for having gone through them. The cold helps produce sugars.

Now is also the time to plant head lettuce seeds. Garden picked lettuce is much tastier than the shipped-from-afar, store-bought stuff. And, here again, there are some real advantages to growing these instead of buying starts. For one, the supply of head lettuce seedlings available hereabouts is very small each spring. Starting your own seeds may be the only way to go simply because you can't be sure you will find some six weeks hence.

By the same token as the other plants mentioned today, you will find more varieties on seed racks and in catalogs. You don't need to pinch back and you can plant more than one harvest. In fact, starting lettuces now and staggering seeding will ensure a continuous supply of salad greens all season long.

Another advantage of lettuces, head or loose leaf, is they can be kept in containers their entire lives. This year, consider taking some large Tupperware-type trays that are eight inches or more deep and using them as your lettuce patch(es). No need to keep your lettuce in the garden where the slugs are going from cabbage to kale!

You can move your containers indoors when frosts are threatening and then put them back out during the day to extend harvest time. Make sure you punch plenty of drainage holes in the containers before you start your portable farm.

Jeff Lowenfels is America's longest running garden columnist and author of "Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web." He can be reached at jeff@gardener.com.