Lotsa Lettuce
I’m a sucker for lettuce seeds. When I read through the descriptions and see the beautiful images in the seed catalogs I go a little overboard. I do like a lot of variety in my salad bowl and find that five or six types of lettuce makes for a great salad.
I have found that lettuce seeds are often best to be purchased fresh each year. I used to keep them for a few years, but germination is so much faster and so many more seeds germinate when the seeds are really fresh. Now all of my leftover seed from the year gets thrown into planters in the fall that get overwintered in the basement. Then I have a nice crop of mesclun for salads in the early winter months.
On Saturday I started a flat of lettuces & endive, there are 15 varieties in all that were started this go around. There are also three other varieties in planters in the basement…..and I have another 15 that are later season varieties that will replace these when the weather warms up a bit. Then I have another 10-15 varieties that will be grown in the fall/winter. Butterheads are my favorite types of lettuce, with romaine coming in a close second. Leaf lettuce are probably my least favorite. I like a lot of crunch and texture in my lettuce. Endive and other bitter greens are also always in my salad bowl, nothing rounds out sweet greens like a bit a bitterness!
What’s your favorite kind of lettuce to grow?
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Welcome Visitors
My guest room has been turned into my seed starting room. Last year I put my big grow light in the basement, which turned out to be way too cold for my seedlings. Our basement is unheated, uninsulated and not very tight. As a result it’s pretty cold down there. Even though the grow light puts off some heat, it wasn’t enough to warm up the space.
So I took over my guest room and turned it into a seed starting room. These guests are more than welcome to stay as long as they’d like!
Where do your seedlings live while they’re indoors? Have you found the perfect spot for them?
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PermaNest Trays
I have a love/hate relationship with those black plastic seed starting trays. I’ve been gardening long enough that I’ve used pretty much every type of seed starting tray there is out there. The black plastic trays work the best for me, but I really dislike how cheap they’ve gotten in recent years. I used to be able to use them for 5-7 years, now they barely last one season. After looking at PermaNest trays for a few years, I finally purchased a few this year to give them a try.
I must admit that I was very happy with the quality of them when I opened up the box. The tall domes with sliding vents are a very rigid plastic, the bottom trays are super heavy duty. I have read reviews on the internet with gardeners saying they’ve had them for 20 years.
They have bottom trays, thinner top domes and the very rigid tall domes with vents. They are all very high quality and I can see that they will last me many years to come.
What I’m most happy about is that I will be able to use my soil blocker with them. They are definitely strong enough to stand up to lots of wear and tear. I will no longer have to worry about cracks and holes in the bottom trays and water leaking out all over the place.
What’s your favorite seed starting tool?
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It’s Official…
Well, the 2015 gardening season has officially started at Chiot’s Run. Yesterday I started onion seeds.
There are eight different types of onions in my trays, each tray is divided in half. This year I’m growing lots of yellows and a few reds.
I also decided to start two varieties of cold tolerant tomatoes. Typically I don’t bother starting tomatoes early, but our short summers here in Maine have me thinking I’ll start growing a few in containers up against rock walls to see how early I can get a few tomatoes for salads and sandwiches. I chose ‘Stupice’ which has always been a reliable early producer for me along with ‘Glacier’ which is a new variety for me.
Even though my garden is still sleeping under a very deep blanket of snow, it will be exciting to see the first little sprouts of green coming out of these flats in a few days. Tomorrow I’ll start celery and a flat of cold tolerant lettuces and endives for early spring salads. From this day forward, I’ll be sowing, watering, thinning, transplanting, sowing again, and then hopefully in six weeks planting a few things in the soil.
What are the first seeds you start for your garden?
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Teeny Strawberries
I’ve grown strawberries from seed a few times before, it’s the only way to acquire some varieties for your garden unless you’re lucky enough to know someone else growing them that will give you plant. Many years ago I started seed for golden strawberries and have had them in my garden ever since. Their tiny yellow berries have a tropical flavor and are quite good on salads.
I also started ‘Tarpan’ strawberries from seed many years ago and brought one plant with me when I moved. It produces beautiful pink flowers all summer long, the berries are also good.
This year I purchased strawberry seeds once again for ‘Elan’, which is a day neutral strawberry and ‘Gasana’ another day neutral variety with pink flowers.
Strawberry seeds are tiny, very tiny and there are usually only 10-15 in each seed packet.
I sowed them in containers and waited. Soon enough the tiny seedlings emerged. It’s amazing to see these little plants, the first set of true leaves look just like strawberry leaves but they are so very small.
I can’t wait to see how these plants produce next year. I’m always game to have new varieties of fruits and vegetables in the garden, especially when I can nurture a plant from a tiny seed.
Have you started anything interesting from seed this summer?
