The race

Feb. 21st, 2009 05:23 pm
vgqn: (Default)
[personal profile] vgqn
In an exciting race against the impending rain, I
  • planted a Mariposa plum tree (to replace the Elephant Heart plum that had died)
  • planted two six-packs of lettuce, since all my fall planted lettuce has bolted now
  • scattered seed for
    • a lettuce cut & come again patch,
    • more spinach to replace the fall planted batch,
    • a bunch of carrots (3 colors!),
    • some radishes amidst the carrots, and
    • more of my beloved Cylindra beets. I'm hoping that said rain will keep all of these seeds moist enough to germinate. I usually do better with transplants, but we'll see.
  • and finally, I planted the second package of asparagus crowns! Yes, between being sick and the frequent (and welcome) rains, I hadn't managed to get the second pack of asparagus planted. But it's in the ground in one of the backyard beds now, and I have my fingers crossed.

Now I'm going to enjoy a nice glass of King Eider vermouth before making dinner (lamb chops, glazed carrots, and frisee salad).

Oh, I did get a few drops of rain on me, but it hasn't started raining in earnest yet. So I declare I won the race.

Date: 2009-02-22 05:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] don-fitch.livejournal.com
So this is a good time to plant (more) lettuce? I've just gotten three more varieties (and a Johnny's catalog that lists what seem like several hundred), but will start them (tomorrow, if the weather be good) in sixpacks for later planting-out. Six plants of each or three or four cultivars of leaf (vs. head)-type seems to be just about right for my use.

Have you grown the multi-colored carrot mixes before? I'm currently harvesting one batch -- and am discovering that many of them are _really_ strong-tasting. Fine for cutting up small in soups & stews, but A Bit Much to eat raw. I think this is inherent in the cultivars, rather than having anything to do with my growing practices.


Date: 2009-02-22 06:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vgqn.livejournal.com
In my experience you can plant lettuce just about any time except for the very hottest and coldest periods. I don't usually try to grow lettuce from May - August because they get bitter and bolt so quickly, although shading them does help. In Dec & Jan, they won't die but they're so slow to get established that the odds are good an errant snail, slug, or earwig will do them in. You're probably enough warmer that those winter months will work for you, right? So the only hesitation with planting now would be how soon is it going to warm up? Plant them somewhere where you can give them shade if need be, but if you get an early heat wave, watch out!

Oh, those catalogs full of lettuce greens! It's really astonishing how many varieties there are. Try Cardinale sometime if you can find it. It's a red Batavian, with large, crisp leaves, very satisfying and a pleasant flavor (top ranked in our red lettuce trial last year). Eventually it forms a head which gets perilously close to iceberg lettuce in taste & texture, so I generally harvest it as a leaf lettuce until that point.

I agree that some of the colored carrots aren't the pleasantest tasting. The UC small farm advisor here did a carrot tasting a couple of years ago (UC numbered varieties, not commercial), and many of the purple ones, in particular, were harsh tasting. Also some of the whites, although one white was fabulous. In any case, I had an old packet of Dragon carrots that I used up, and a packet of yellow carrots from New Dimensions seed, plus good old Nantes. I'll be lucky if any of these grow because I am an indifferent carrot grower, unwilling to give them the care they want.

Date: 2009-02-22 06:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vgqn.livejournal.com
P.S. Which carrot mix are you growing? Are the cultivars specified individually?

Date: 2009-02-27 12:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] don-fitch.livejournal.com
Just something (from the rack in a Yuppie Boutique-y place in Claremont) that struck my eye -- labeled only as "Gourmet Blend" from Irish Eyes -- Garden City(?).

My impression is that the sweet/mild-enough-to-eat-raw yellow carrots are a recent (less than a century ago) Dutch development, and that the darker-skinned ones, especially, are more like the bitter/medicinal wild form. Some of these, however, do turn very sweet if cooked for a long time.

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