The last-plantings-of-the-season fun continues as we watch the weather and hope these crops get a jump before cool temperatures and weaker sun start to seriously slow things down. More sun is the main thing, right now, and that’s been going well. Our last beds of spinach, lettuce, radish and Asian greens, direct seeded a week ago, got well-rained in the day after seeding, and they’re all coming up now. Still, it’s been fairly windy and dry since, so we decided to hand water them, to help ’em all along. Here, Tracy uses the RedHead water breaker to gently lay down a little flood (behind her that’s broccoli, exploded: tiny broccoli flowers from unharvested heads that we take to market as a free edible flower salad garnish). In this section, 100′ x 5 rows of lettuce mix, and the same of Bloomsdale spinach… Grow, little plants, grow! :)
Tracy
Last in!
Today, the last direct seeding of the season: spinach, radish, Asian greens mix, arugula, and a lettuce blend for baby leaf… Here, Tracy does the honors with the always-generous Earthway seeder, laying down thick lines of Rebel radish. But is it…too late? Well, who knows?! In good summer conditions, all of these crops can be ready to harvest in 40 days or so from seeding, but the sun is getting weaker now. Hopefully, this round will come up fast, catch the last of the reasonably strong light through September—there WILL be lots of sun!—then continue growing slowly until ready for the last couple of markets through the end of October. That is the…plan. Fresh young veggies at season’s end are a welcome treat! If it doesn’t work out, oh well (and we may get a chance to do a few days at the indoor market in November). In any case, we have the space and the seed, and pushing for the absolute latest planting date seems to me always worth the gamble. Seeing what happens is kinda…exciting!