lettuce be

Has anyone noticed the prices of greens this year?  $5.00 for a head of Romaine is just a little too high, in my humble opinion.  I mean, it grows in the dirt from a seed that costs like 1/1000th of a penny.  Just add water, wait, and sell it for five bucks.  Hell, I can do that myself and eliminate all those middlemen. 

Let me make this clear.  I'm not bitching about the cost of salad greens.  I'm bitching about the price of salad greens.  There is a difference.  It takes 60 days to grow a head of lettuce from seed to head.  Labor consists of planting a seed, adding water and nutrients, and waiting 45 days.  They plant thousands of these at a time and pay some kid five bucks an hour to do it.  (part time to save the cost of benefits)   That might take a half day.  40 days later they pick em, pack em, and ship em to the store who buys them for pennies and sells them for 400% profit to pay his minimum wage part timers, with a little left over for a new car.

I know the economy is better than it's ever been.  Everyone is suddenly debt free and their mortgages are paid off.  Even burger flippers are getting 20 bucks an hour.  So why should anyone complain about four heads of lettuce costing an hours worth of labor?  Think it might have something to do with the cost of a 32 GB USB flash drive costing less than a head of lettuce?

Whatever the reason, I decided to do a cost analysis and see for myself.

I went through the garage and found just about everything I needed to build a hydroponic system.  A couple pieces of 3" PVC, some 2x4s, submersible fountain pump, 5 gallon bucket with lid, some neoprene hose, and a box of nails.  A little scrounging and Amazon and next thing ya know I'm growing greens.  I figure that's $20 worth of Romain and $15 worth of mixed lettuce at three bucks a head.  Maybe I'll set up a little stand outside the grocery store to sell my surplus.

Of course, it's my first attempt and I made plenty of mistakes like drilling the holes before cementing it together.  But a little ingenuity, a couple power tools, and a propane torch later it looks almost professional.  At least it works.  As a control, I have two Romain plants in dirt to compare growing results.

This system could equally work with aquaponics as well as multi-tiered set ups to support 100 plants in the same square footage.  I'm also working on a similar system to grow asparagus and tomatoes that would produce year round in a zone 3 climate.

Now that I don't have to waste my time pulling weeds, I can work on something really important, like my pyramid amplified field generator.

Stay tuned.