Two Star lettuce

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I like to call it All Star lettuce because that’s how it performs. It’s easy to grow and tastes great. I buy it here. Its easy to grow, sweet tasting, and I’ve never had any issues with pest.

In the square foot gardening system this is planted 4 per square. Since most lettuces will say “thin to 6 inches”, this is how you normally space this crop. However, I do grow a lettuce that says “thin to 12 inches!” It’s an amazing buttercrunch variety that I will write about as soon as it starts to get bigger so you can see for yourself.

Now is the perfect time to begin planting for the summer garden. Peppers, tomatoes, basil, carrots, etc. are all the things I’m planting now, along with a continual supply of lettuce. 

Lettuce is tricky to grow in the warm summer months. Unless you know a few tips, it’s going to be difficult to do. My newest ebook talks all about how to grow it through the heat of the summer. I’ve been doing it for almost 2 decades.[ois skin=”1″]

No thinning in the square foot gardens

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One of the many great spring crops to grow is arugula. Until recently, I’ve never been a fan. The reason? Too spicy!

I just happen to be out to dinner a couple of years ago at a nice restaurant. The salad was particularly delicious so I asked the server what the mixed greens were and where they got them. Turns out it was arugula. I was sure he must have been mistaken because there was no edge to it. Sure enough, thats what it was, mixed in with 2 or three other salad greens. I tracked down the farm where it came from(California) in an effort to find the variety. I was told they couldn’t tell me because of “proprietary reasons.” What? It took me a couple of weeks but I did find out the variety. In the meantime I learned a good lesson.

Arugula grown in warm weather and then harvested at something less than the baby leaf stage will always be more spicy. Grow it in cool weather and harvest it when young, and the taste is drastically different. This is how I’ve become an arugula fan.

Since arugula spacing says “thin to 4 inches” on the back of the packet, you would plant 9 of them in a square. By only adding one or two seeds per hole, you end up not hardly ever thinning. This is a picture of that: I might have to thin 1 plant. Look hard enough and you might see some claytonia that has overwintered and is trying to grow[ois skin=”1″]

Spring planting with vertical gardening in mind

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In years past I’ve planted my spring garden and put things wherever I wanted. When it became time to put in my summer vertical crops I often had to either wait for the existing squares to finish, which meant putting my tomatoes in a little late, or pull the plants which were in the square which hadn’t finished yet. For many years I’ve learned to put in the earliest crops where my vertical summer crops will grow.

What do you grow right now so your squares will be ready for summer vertical crops? All the cool weather crops: lettuce, spinach, chard, endive, kohlrabi, arugula, bok choi, mizuna, kale, even radicchio. etc. Radishes can go in later because they only take about 30 days. I know there will be 7 weeks until the summer crops go in, so this leaves me with time to grow all the things that love spring. Mel always taught to think one season ahead[ois skin=”1″]

Winter garden makes it through

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This will be a short post about the tasks I’m doing now. Really, its all just preparation. This is the time to order seeds and to warm up your soil. We can still count on some snow and freezing temperatures but spring time is a couple weeks away.

For our climate, there is little advantage in planting before April 1st. I’ve done the experiments of planting on January and February 1st, Presidents day weekend, and the first week or two in March. When I compare that to what I plant the first week of April, it’s obvious that the extra work doesn’t get you much. Many of the crops don’t make it, and the ones planted in March easily catch up to those planted earlier.

I like to plant, spinach, chard, radish, bok choi, and some different kinds of Asian greens such as tatsoi and tokyo bekana. These are easy to grow and are direct seeded. April 1st marks the time for me to begin the summer crops: tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, and peppers.

The picture you see is the winter garden. I planted that in late summer, covered it, and did virtually no work. I don’t think I even looked underneath the cover for 2 months! Its loaded with claytonia, corn salad, green onions, rosemary, spinach, lettuces, etc. I’ll post this later in the summer time for those who want to learn how to do it, the timing, and the crops to grow successfully[ois skin=”1″]

Preparing for spring

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A little hard to believe-tomorrow we begin the first day of 10 hours of sunlight. This means we’ve come out of the Persephone period and plants will now begin to grow. It will be slow at first but will pick up as spring approaches. There’s still a lot of winter weather to deal with but the garden is ready to be warmed up. Some of the garden has been over-wintered and looks very good.

I usually begin covering my garden with plastic the first week of February so the soil will be ready to plant by February 17th. This year I’ll wait until the first week of March. The reason? I don’t seem to get ahead by the earlier starting date but it does add to my workload.

The next couple of weeks I’ll be selecting and ordering seeds. If you’ve been on my site much, you’ll already know my favorite places to buy. Johhny’s, Burpee, Jungs, and Territorial Seed. There’s a local place I like to buy from-Mountain Valley Seeds.

Crops I’ll be planting will be my regular early spring crops: several varieties of lettuce, spinach, claytonia, beet greens, tokyo bekana, corn salad, chard, bok choi, and maybe radicchio. My cool weather herbs have always been cilantro and chives[ois skin=”3″]