Cool weather running

It's been in the 50s and 60s here. for the most part. I know the peas are happy about that. There's another plant that flourishes in cooler/shady weather, and that is lettuce.

So I planted some, on April 25, 2010.

I planted three rows of it. The far right hand row has, uh, sorrel and arugula, i beeve (sorrel closest to the rear and arugula getting closer.) The middle row has regular leaf lettuce, and then spinach as you get closer. The far left row has all mesclun greens.

Here is what spinach seeds look like up close. They look like cilantro seeds. It's weird b/c in all the times I have eaten spinach, I have never come across these seeds.

Like with the peas, I threw caution to the wind and did not obey the spacing reccomendations. I just tossed them into the row all snuggled up next to one another getting cozy and crowded.

This is what mesclun green seeds look like:

Like a bunch of mish mash, mostly. Same thing on the spacing. It's nice to plant seeds. It makes you feel like Johnny Appleseed.

I had to put the fencing back up around the garden because of the little bunny. He's been back already. I will put up a photo to show you how we combat varmints around here. Maybelline of Bakersfield puts up shiny ribbons called "scare tape" to scare away birds. I think I will do that once I plant the tomatoes.

Grow lettuce, grow!

Rotated plantings, Peas and Lettuce

The four pea plants are finally showing their stuff.

Here's the first one:
Juuuuuuust disregard the weeds showing in the background. We try to get rid of those as often as possible.

Now that is the only pea plant that survived that two weeks of torrential downpour after the initial plantings. It is about a foot tall now and instead of a true trellis we just plopped a tomato cage down for it to climb up. It was planted on or about April 26, emerged from soil on May 3 and was recognizably going to live on May 8 (at least those were posting dates).

I did a second planting when it was clear none others were going to germinate/sprout:
I planted about 10 seeds on May 11, and three of them emerged. You can see here the newspaper mulch (just scroll around on the blog to see about the whole newspaper mulching effort).

So, now I have four pea plants - I really do not think that is going to be enough sugar snap peas!
I have found the greatest garden blog that I must share with readers. Maybelline's Garden - based in Bakersfield, CA. Now, she has some vibrant photos of her pea plants, which in the Bakersfield heat (Zone 9) she has already harvested and thrown into the compost heap.

Taking a note from a proficient gardener, I see it is a good idea to do rotated plantings. Obviously, I do not want to be stuck with bushels and bushels of peas and beans and zucchini and lettuce, etc. etc. all at once, and then have nothing. I will not be able to process or eat all of this, and it will rot, and then we will have nothing. As I layed in bed until 4 a.m. last night, hopped up on cold medicine that had my mind racing (note, don't take Advil Cold and Sinus if you need to sleep), i began devising a plan to donate my bushels of extras to the church or homeless shelter.

So I will plant more peas, and more peas. I will not let them keep me down! I may need to plant more beans, too. We will probably want a second crop. Mister Siren loves his beans. Here they are yesterday, a month after planting:

Anyway, I was thinking about this rotated planting issue back before I planted the lettuces. Especially last year when I had my druthers. But this year, i just plunged ahead. Well, we better be ready to eat some salad.

The mesclun/field greens are going to be ready pretty soon, all at once, and we will be eating daily salads, I think:
We have approximately six Bibb Lettuce plants growing, but these are at different rates, since I did that re-planting on May 11:
While we have 2 advanced arugula seedlings, the rest of the row is from the May 11 replanting, so hopefully that will give us some arugula salads later to mix in with the bibb lettuce, after we are tired of mesclun greens:

If you think the newspaper mulch looks messy, I know. It gets blown around by the wind and is a real pain in the neck. But is really helps with the weeds, let me tell you.

And the sorrel is basically coming up all at once, from the May 11 replanting:

So, anyway, I am devising a plan to rotate in some new crops so that we can have continuous salads, peas, beans, etc. The zucchini should be good producers throughout the season when they finally start bearing fruit. Maybelline's Garden had twelve plants, I definitely don't think we need that many! But I'll report back.