Moxie Gardener

Spring lettuce almost ready to harvest.

There’s nothing like fresh, crisp, delicious, spring salad greens picked from your own urban garden.

Nothing.

Even if you buy your greens fresh from the farmer’s market, they’ll never be as fresh and sweet as the ones you pick from your own garden and have for dinner that night.

I say “that night” because you must pick salad greens on the day you plan to eat them, in the early morning before the sun climbs very high into the sky. They’ll be at their most succulent then, with drops of dew clinging to their leaves and to your fingers.

The lettuce mixture in the photo above is just about ready to pick. I’ll give them a few more days, especially since rain is forecast tomorrow. Lettuce is mostly water; water equals quick, succulent growth.

I have an unusual method for picking lettuce. Sometimes I go down the row with a scissors and cut off a cross-section of the mesclun or lettuce mix, leaving the roots to grow another crop of leaves.

Other times, I pick the largest plants in the patch of intensively planted salad greens. I immediately snip off the roots with a regular pair of scissors (this helps keep soil off the greens).

A week or so later, the smaller plants that I left in the garden have grown larger. I again go through the patch, picking the largest plants and snipping off the roots right then and there. Each time I thin out the larger plants, I leave the smaller ones.

They are at their most delicious when they’re about four to five inches high. Pick them then and leave all of the smaller ones to continue growing.

This effectively extends my lettuce harvest. Here’s my theory on why this works: lettuce has a tendency to get bitter and “bolt” or “go to seed” when hot summer weather sets in. The larger the plant, the greater the chance of this happening. But if you pick the larger plants, you’re left with the smaller ones, which put their energy into growing and have less of a tendency to turn bitter.

At least that’s what I’ve experienced.

Have you ever tried extending your lettuce harvest by picking the largest plants and leaving the smaller ones to continue growing?

Baby spinach leaves.

Spinach comes in three basic varieties: smooth leaves, curly leaves, or semi-curly leaves. Almost all “baby” spinach sold pre-washed and packaged in the United States is the smooth-leaved spinach. It’s not necessarily “baby” spinach; many are varieties that don’t grow any larger.

Spinach originated in the Middle East and was spread throughout the ancient world by Arab conquerors. To this day, it is still referred to as “Persian greens” in China. It became more popular in Europe after Catherine de Medici brought it with her when she married the King of France. Ever since, dishes containing spinach are known as “Florentine,” referring to her home in Florence, Italy.

Known botanically as Spinacia oleracea, spinach is a cool-weather vegetable that is fairly hardy, considering its origins near the deserts of the Middle East.

Plant spinach seeds in early spring as soon as the ground can be worked. For a continuous harvest, plant every two weeks until late spring. When hot weather arrives, spinach will bolt, sending up a seed stalk and becoming bitter. Plant again in late summer for fall harvests. For summer sowing, chill seeds in refrigerator for a week or so; you’ll get better germination rates.

Sow seeds about an inch apart in rows 12 inches apart; for intensive gardens, space seeds 2 to 3 inches apart in all directions. Thin plants so they are about four inches apart for either method. Don’t waste any spinach plants; the ones you thin out are sweet and succulent. Many mesclun mixes include spinach seeds to be harvested when immature, along with the rest of the mix.

Spinach needs a lot of moisture and a fertile, well-drained soil. They shouldn’t need any additional fertilizer unless growth is slow or if plants are a light green. In this case, side-dress with high-nitrogen fertilizer.

Spinach is also a good crop to seed in late fall for overwintering. Even if the seeds germinate before freezing weather sets in, they’ll most likely survive if you mulch them well with straw or leaves and remove as soon as weather begins to warm up in spring.

I planted spinach last fall to overwinter, and also planted seeds in an old crock earlier this spring. Due to our continued freezing temperatures, snow, and downright lack of warm spring weather, neither patch has germinated yet. I’ll let you know when they do.

As a gardener, of course, I remain ever hopeful.

Summer is winding down and it’s time to start seeds for fall lettuce and mesclun mixes.  My lettuce, spinach, and mesclun mixes planted in April and May have long since turned bitter in the heat of summer.

I like to start my fall lettuce and other salad greens in the house under lights.  It is possible to grow seedlings outdoors in a cold frame or in a shady corner, but the heat of late summer dries out the small pots rather quickly.  This can spell the end of young seedlings.  Keeping them inside mitigates this somewhat, even in a house without air conditioning.

Grow the seedlings inside for only a couple weeks before moving them outside to harden off in the shade for a week before planting.  Just make sure to check them morning and evening so they don’t dry out.  This is easy to fit into your schedule for only a week.  Plant in the ground three weeks after they germinate.  Your three week old plants will take off and mature in the cool fall weather.

In my Minnesota garden I plant mesclun in fall.  I put four seeds in each pot and I don’t thin.  Each pot gets planted as a unit and I don’t space between the units.  Here there isn’t enough time before frost for the plants to fully mature.  As they grow I pick every other plant.  The plants left in the ground continue to grow and I pick every other one again.  The remaining plants grow even larger and by that time frost is threatening.

When I pull the last of the fall-sown mesclun, I sow some spinach seeds to overwinter for an early crop the following spring.  Of course, first I work in some compost and make sure to plant a different crop after I harvest the spinach in spring.

With a little advance planning you can be harvesting fresh salad greens until frost.