I'm Getting a Slow Start

Maybe I am misled by the warm spring we have had so far, but I seem to be behind in my "regular" gardening. Working on building cold frames and trying to get some greens started early in cold frames I have been late in starting seeds for the garden. As a result I have peppers that are just beginning to form their first true leaves and tomatoes that certainly don't look like they will be big enough to set out later this month.

I am concerned about the potting soil I used. It retains a lot of moisture so that some of the seedlings that I set out were sitting in dripping potting soil. But they certainly have roots. I am mostly concerned about the growth of the seedlings. Several days ago I planted out the smallest lettuce seedlings ever. But, knowing that lettuce is pretty hardy (and that I have bunches more still in their little containers), I set out about 60 tiny seedlings. I put them in the frame that I used for the winter lettuce and, later, the early Asian greens and covered the frame with row cover material to protect them from too much sunlight. Hopefully the slugs won't find them immediately.

I have also set out celeriac - although this may be too early as I have read that they will bolt in the warm weather. Anyone with experience with celeriac, let me know. The parsley is in - now that it is large enough so that I can distinguish it from the cutting celery. [I didn't label the containers.] I have planted potatoes and set out more leeks yesterday. I planted the leeks by dropping them into holes made with a dowel. Usually I dig trenches and plant them in the bottom and then pull the extra soil over them as they grow. I'll see how this method works because it is certainly easier and allows more leeks in the same space since there isn't soil piled up along the sides.

We may now be where we are producing enough of our own greens that we don't need to buy them at the grocery store. The Asian greens (Chinese cabbages, komatsuna, and pak choi) have grown well and are ready to eat. We have been working on the lettuces that I planted out in the cold frames earlier. [The winter lettuce have been gone for some time - how long will 22 lettuce plants last?] We have been eating last year's kale and scallions and have started on this year's zen and spinach.

Now, since I am already late, I need to start some basil, more kale and squash inside, and fava beans and scallions outside. From the limited way in which scallions have germinated inside this year I suspect that the seeds have lost much of their viability.

And, just as I finish this my wife spotted a nice fat groundhog in the back yard with something nice and green in its mouth. Guess we didn't get them all last year.

The Early Spring Garden

Global warming brought us some very warm early April days. The high was 87 degrees yesterday. Today was a little cooler but very sunny and comfortable. In short, great weather to be in the garden.
Typically there wouldn't be much in the garden at this time of the year. But with the new cold frames we are nearly ready to begin eating. The lettuces in this photo are the ones that I started last October and which were in my old glass covered frame during the winter. The frame is now behind the lettuce and is covered with row cover material. The frame contains Chinese cabbage, pak choi and komatsuna (another Asian green) that I had started indoors on February 11th and that I transplanted out five or six days ago. Initially the row cover material was to protect the transplants from the sun since they were hardened off only for a couple of days. But my Asian greens have often been a food source for flea beetles and so the row cover now keeps off any flea beetles. [I don't know if they would be around this early in the year.]

In one of the new cold frames I transplanted lettuce, spinach, and zen around four weeks ago. This frame is not insulated and doesn't retain as much heat as my other two new ones. One of them is pictured below.

This frame, which is insulated (the insulation is covered with black plastic to protect it and presumably absorb more heat), contains some red lettuce in the lower corner, then a group of mache (corn salad), some spinach at the top which is mostly overgrown with zen (the larger leafed plants). If you could see closer up you would see from the holes that zen is a favorite of the slugs. So far it seems that the slugs concentrate on the zen and the Chinese cabbage and pretty much leave alone the Claytonia (which is in the one cold frame not shown here), the mache, spinach and lettuce.
The red object in this photo and the black object in the photo above it are the plastic covered pieces of board that I use to attract slugs. My wife suggests that if I got up earlier in the morning I could go out and pick the slugs off the plants before they scatter to avoid the sun. She got about a dozen this morning which is more than I typically find under the boards. Where do they all come from? Since I am more of a night person maybe I should go out at night with a flashlight and pick off the slugs before they can start eating.

Having the claytonia, mache, lettuce, spinach, and Asian greens available is a result of using the cold frames. But this year we had another surprise. In the fall I planted a lot of Red Russian kale. It had been so productive for us during the year that I started some late in the season and planted them in a number of places. Then winter came before they were big enough to provide anything for us to eat. I have read that Red Russian kale is not the best variety to try and maintain through the winter and so I assumed that they would end up as a cover crop. When the heavy snow that we had in late February/early March finally melted away there were the kale plants. And here is what they look like now. They are definitely growing and I would not be surprised, depending on the weather, if we have some to eat very soon.