Surprise in the Compost Pile

I stopped by the garden on Sunday morning to check on the plants and to turn over the compost pile. While turning over the compost I came upon a surprise. The root end of a head of romaine that gone into the compost had started to sprout. You can see in the picture the small leafs starting to grow out of the discarded root end of the romaine.

In the compost pile I always find sprouts that grow from melon seeds and discarded potato peelings but this is the first time I have seen lettuce growing. It is definitely surprising but also very encouraging.

I find it surprising because of what the head of lettuce went through before it even went into the compost pile. I was probably harvested from a field in California or Mexico, packaged in the field and then cooled to 40 degrees or below. Then it was shipped across country to Houston where it sat in another refrigerator before I purchased it and brought it to the kitchen. After that is spent another day or two in my refrigerator before I chopped it up for a salad. The root end of the lettuce then went into the container where I keep all of the compostable fruit and vegetable scraps then it sat around in the kitchen for the remainder of the day before being tossed in to the compost pile.

It is encouraging because I should be able to plant the scraps from the kitchen directly into the garden and have lettuce grow. That would reduce costs and also not require seeds to be shipped from the seed company directly to me or to the local garden center, further reducing waste and carbon emissions.

I will keep an eye on the romaine and post updates as to its health and growth.