Lettuce: 40-90 days. From seed in April and every two weeks thereafter until mid May. Start a fall crop in mid-late August. Plant 1″ apart and harvest every other immature plant for microgreens. Finish with plants 6″-8″ apart. Or simply designate an area, sprinkle seeds evenly and use a rake to integrate seed into soil. Few vegetables vary as much as lettuce. From the almost inedible iceberg to the tiny butter crunch to a delicious red romaine, lettuce’s looks, tastes and textures are all over the map. It thrives in cool weather.
By June the sap changes from clear to milky, the flavor becomes bitter and flowers appear. The lettuce is said to have “bolted.” Planting lettuce in partial shade will slow bolting. Four types-deer’s tongue, oak leaf, a cultivar called “Nevada” and a romaine called “Jericho”-are bolt resistant. A fall crop planted in late August is also a possibility.
Seeds of Change offers a tremendous variety of lettuces, as does hometown favorite Botanical Interests. New salad green mixtures called mesclun mixes are quite tasty. They incorporate arugula, mizuna and tatsoi. Few things are easier or much rewarding as growing lettuce. One trick if you have limited space is to collect the outer leaves of the lettuce and keep the core growing.
Onions: 30-140 days. Sow seed ½” deep in April, 1″ apart. Or use sets-immature onion starts-after last hard freeze. Plant round sets with tops exposed and slender sets 1 ½” deep. Round sets have a greater tendency to bolt. With seeds so tightly packed, harvest every other immature onion and use as a green onion. Sweet onions have a short storage life while regular globe onions can last for up to a year. Two weeks before the first expected frost bend over but do not break the tall green stalks of the growing onions. A week later pull the onions out and sun dry for a day or two. Trim stalks off and store. Onions can also be left in the soil and heavily mulched. In their second year onions will go to seed. Italian Red of Florence, sold by Botanical Interests, is a great all- purpose onion. It’s sold as a bunching onion but grows into a great slicing onion as well, with great nutty flavor.
Peas: 55-80 days. Grown from seeds planted 2″ apart. Since peas are vines they’ll need netting or a trellis upon which to grow. Or they can be grown as a mat, intertwining and supporting one another. Peas can be planted in the fall for an extra early crop or as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring. Edible pod peas-exemplified by sugar snack, sugar daddy, etc.-have taken the county by storm. The taller the cultivar is the more peas it will produce. By mid-June peas will wind down. They don’t like the heat. Intercrop with cucumbers, which can use the same support system the peas needed.
Potatoes: 60-100 days. Grown from tubers, sliced up and sulfured or left whole. Planted in spring, 4″ deep and dug up or planted at grade and covered with deepening layers of compost and soil (less digging). Nothing can compare to that first taste of new potatoes in early summer. St. Patrick’s Day is the traditional day to plant them but planting a few weeks later is usually better. Potatoes have specific uses. Pick one you like, put it in a sunny window for two weeks before you intend to plant, to facilitate sprouting. Keep in mind that many commercial potatoes are sprayed with a sprouting retardant. Better to find a type you like at an organic grocery store. Once you notice the plant flowering you’ll know that the tubers are forming. Before the frost dig tubers out and sun-dry for a day or two. Clean– but do not wash-and store in a dark cool place. Whole Foods sells a mix of heirloom fingerling potatoes-white, yellow and red-that produce incredible crops of tasty new potatoes, perfect boiled or made into potato salad. If anyone knows of any good use for a blue potato, please let us know.
Radishes: 28-60 days. Grown from seed planted 2″ apart in mid-April and every two weeks until June. Nothing could be easier or more gratifying to grow than radishes-a crop fully realized in a month! This makes them the perfect choice for children’s gardens. French breakfast radishes are the standard, but there are purple ones, black Spanish radishes and even the giant Japanese Daikon radishes.
Rhubarb: Grown from woody roots planted 2′ apart, productive within 3 years. Rhubarb was celebrated by our forbearers because it was the first greenery to appear after a long winter. Think carefully about where you locate the plant because after a few years you’ll need a backhoe to get the root out of the ground. Stalks are best collected young. In the second year you start by harvesting half the stalks, three-quarters thereafter. Leaves are mildly poisonous. If a flower stalk appears cut it down.
Spinach: 30-55 days. Grown from seed planted 1″ apart and thinned out as needed, until plants are 6″ apart. Sow seeds as soon as ground can be worked and every two weeks until mid-May. Can be sown in the fall under floating row cover for an extra early crop. Can be grown throughout the winter in a good cold frame. June heat will lead to bolting. Plant again in mid-August.
Strawberries. Grown from plants 8″ apart, in rows 18″ apart. Plant in April. Begins producing in earnest in the second year. Mark the original rows with some form of permanent markers. Pick all blossoms and nascent fruit off plants during the first year, so that plants concentrate on rooting. Pay attention when planting, so that the crown– the lowest green part of the plant– is above the surface and the roots– the brown part– are below. Strawberries produce runners, which are stems terminated with plantlets which increase in size. When the plantlets develop roots and leaves the stem can be snipped and the plantlets planted in the 18″ space between the original plants. Strawberries produced well until the fifth year, after which production declines. The reason you’ve permanently marked the original rows is that in the third year you’ll rip out the original plants and replace them with plantlets grown in that year. The next year you’ll reverse the process, ripping out existing plants and replacing them with runners. By replacing alternate rows on alternate years you will be continuously renewing your strawberry patch, insuring good production. There are three basic types of strawberries. June-bearing produce once good crop in early summer. Ever-bearing types produce a crop every six weeks or so throughout the summer. Daylight neutral types produce continuously all summer long. In fall mulch with 4″ of straw, pulling it off when growth begins in the spring.
Turnips and Rutabaga: 30-120 days. Grown from seed planted 4″ apart in April and again in mid-August. Certain varieties of turnips are grown for their greens alone.
To read all of Todd’s Avant Gardening posts, see the Avant Gardening Series category.
