Thursday 14 May 2015

Starting Off With Good Intentions

Wednesday was a big improvement on the last couple of days as the strong winds finally abated. With some decent sunny spells and temperatures around normal 16.0°C (61.0°F), it was a pleasant spring afternoon.

Every year I start off with the intention of sowing successional crops such as lettuce on a regular basis. For some reason it never seems to last or a couple of crops fail and we are left with a long gap between crops. This year has started off well so far. 
This module of Tom Thumb lettuces are our most advanced crop and will be planted out into the raised bed at home and a few will be planted out on the plot. Following on close behind these are some Little Gem lettuces.
We've some mixed salad leaves planted in trays which should be ready to pick in the next few days.
Last in the production line at the minute are some seedlings of Little Leprechaun lettuce a variety we haven’t tried before. These were only pricked out this week.
Sue sowed some more salad leaves in trays this week. Our next sowings of salad leaves will be in our raised bed at home. I should also sow some more lettuce seed but these might have to be germinated in the cold frame as it can get too warm in the greenhouse for germination to take place.

4 comments:

  1. I always struggle with successional growing of salads as well, I think because I fill up all the available space too early on. I seem to have lost a whole tray of chinese leaves as well, I'm not sure how that could happen, but they've just vanished. Not just the plants, the entire tray. I cheated and bought a tray of oak leaf lettuces from the garden shop, they always do well and don't take long until we can harvest from them. I always end up doing that when I've forgotten to sow more.

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    Replies
    1. Nice to know I'm not on my own. It's always looks so easy on gardening programmes. They don't have Chinese leaves go missing or slugs devastate a crop or all the other things that happen to real gardeners.

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  2. I have 9 different varieties of lettuce on the go at present, but Sod's Law says that they will all mature at the same time! Mind you, with weather like today's it will be a wonder if they grow at all.

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    Replies
    1. I struggle to manage 3 or 4 varieties so having 9 on the go is impressive. Cold easterly wind here today - more like March than May!

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