We’ve had 2 nights of hard freezes-one worse than the other. This is a picture of all-star lettuce. It’s a cut-and-come again lettuce that went through both nights with no protection at all. This is an example of how some things are more hardy when they are smaller. They did warm up and thaw by the end of both days. If this had been an established head of lettuce, after two freeze/thaw periods it would be a bowl of soup-all mush. I have other things that were protected and without exception everything is completely fine. The question I always ask myself when it gets this cold is “do I have anything in the garden that doesn’t like cold weather?” Fortunately I don’t. I’ve got a picture of some leeks where there is frost on the leaves and they are just perfect. By matching the right crop with the right season you eliminate all kinds of worries. As a side note, this spacing pattern breaks the general rule of planting lettuce. This is done because they will not be full heads of lettuce but rather part of a mesclun salad mix that will be cut only twice. After that, I’ll amend the soil and replant with something from the root or fruit varieties. Soil amendments and crop rotation. Couldn’t be any easier than this.

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Remember these from last week? After placing the sprouted lettuce seeds in potting soil, this is what they look like after one week. There are huge advantages to this method. If I had attempted to direct seed this in the garden a week ago, nothing would have come up this quickly with the temperatures we’ve had. I will plant these in the garden in 1 week and they will be fine. It will be April 1st in just a couple of days. In zone 6B this means you can have your spring gardens planted with just a layer of plastic protection. This way you’ll have things in the ground, planted and harvested just in time for your summer gardens to be put in-about the 3rd week of May. In about 2 weeks from today my first delivery of baskets to 5 customers will start. It’s been very little effort. Here’s the goodies they will receive and an example of what you can also consider doing in a couple of days: Mizuna, Toykoy Bekana, 4 different kinds of lettuce, poc choi, swiss chard, tatsoi, radicchio, spinach, cilantro, carrots, arugula, claytonia, and minutina. I also have 3 Sakura tomato plants that are 2 feet tall and are now showing blossoms. These are special “greenhouse” cherry tomatoes that are just excellent. I’ll end up using these for my early summer delivery baskets and will probably have some available for the last week or two of the spring baskets. On April 1st I will start my regular tomatoes inside-San Marzano and other cherry varieties. This will give me 6 weeks of growth by the time late May gets here-perfect timing for them to go out. I’ll also start my cucumbers and basil inside as well.

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This is for those who attended the SFG workshop at Thanksgiving Point this past Saturday. As an example of one way to get seeds started, I had one of the participants wet a paper towel, add a few seeds, place it on the paper plate, and then close it up. I kept this upstairs on a counter and by Sunday night, a few had already sprouted. By Monday, they all had. These have all been gently lifted out and placed in potmakers where they will continue to grow. In 3 weeks they will be ready to go outside in the garden. Pretty good way to plant. Hope it gives you some ideas.[ois skin=”below post”]