Its almost time. Earth is warming, sun is shinning and now I can stop pacing in front of the window and start planning, purchasing, and planting. Lettuce is one of the first things of the season you can plant. There are some fun ways to start planting with introductions of new lettuce blends and new ways to deliver the blends.
While visiting the nursery and looking for new lettuce seeds I was amazed at how many there were. Seems like that is the trend right now. Of course that started me to thinking why blend only lettuces together. When you go to the store there are all different blends for salad mixes. You will see spinach blended with baby romaine, baby beets, and lettuces, and so on. So I thought why not plant them together. They can all be growing about the same time with different rows, I typically cut my salad greens when they are young so don’t really worry about ‘maturity’ dates.
So off I go to do research. For our purposes we need to know germination rate (how long it takes the seed produce something green that we can see). We want all of our seed to germinate within a few days of each other. This means they will be ready to harvest in their ‘baby greens’ state about the same time. Most salad greens can be treated as ‘cut and come again’.
Strangely enough some seed packets don’t have very much information. I think all seed packets should give basic information and some uniformity would be great. One packet will say how to plant, spacing and harvest but not give a germination rate. A couple even gave recipes! The seed packet is pretty small so I’d rather see great information about the seed, as much as is available, instead of a recipe.
Some rules of gardening to keep in mind as you choose your mix.
1. Same temperature for germination. Don’t use warm weather crops with cool weather crops.
2. Same time of germination. You want seedlings to show up about the same time within a few days or a week.
3. Use good quality seed and no old seed. Many people know that seed can be saved over one season to the next. The seed will still come up but germination rates are decreased.
4. Planting depths should be about the same. 1/2 in to 1/4 inch choose the 1/4 inch depth for all. 1 inch to 1/4 inch choose another variety closer to the same.
I picked out some great seeds to mix up:
- Gala Mache- Lamb’s lettuce (European favorite) – Renee’s Garden Seeds
- Rustic arugula – an heirloom variety from Italy – Renee’s Garden Seeds
- Red and Golden beets – Cooks Garden Seeds
- Flashy Trout Back Lettuce , Heirloom Cutting Lettuce -Renee’s Garden Seeds
- Catalina Spinach Baby Leaf Spinach – Renee’s Garden Seeds
- Fire Red Orach, French Spinach – Ed Hume Seeds
- Sprint Salad Scallions, Green onions – Renee’s Garden Seeds
Side Note: The French Spinach is not a true spinach (interesting right?). It has purple leaves, very nutritious and can be harvested young or cooked like green spinach when it matures.
The scallions can be cut with the rest of the greens to add a mild onion flavor. Beet greens can be cut and harvested young too. We will only use part of the seed packets in the mix and use the rest in a separate row of the garden and allow them to mature into full heads of lettuce.
When I was ready to plant my crop I poured the seeds out together on a mat to mix. Then I funneled them back into the pack for spreading into my prepared soil.
Today is March 23rd and I will go out and plant my seed mix. The earth feels fairly warm and is nice and crumbly, nice to work. I mixed them together into a seed envelope so they could be spread easily. I scattered thinly and then went back over the same line. The bigger heavier seed came out first and the smaller lighter seed came out after. The row is a little broader than my regular rows but I want to cut them in bigger sections so that will work.
I watered the row in well and placed a grid of metal over the top. I will remove it when I start to see germination. It keeps the birds from going back into the newly tilled up space and eating the seeds. In some cases (the peas) I leave it in place the peas grow through it and it protects from rabbits and cats digging.
Let’s talk about soil real quick… My soil had organic matter dug into it in the fall and is ready to plant now. I really spend a lot of my energy getting good viable soil that is strong and has lots of organic matter and worm action. This means I won’t have to do a lot of fertilizing later on. Everything we grow needs a good foundation of soil. This helps with pests and diseases because you have really healthy plants. I will fertilize with a diluted fertilizer only once in the season when the seedlings are about 1 inch tall.
I’ll keep you posted on how the seed mix is doing. Let me know if any of you try out a mix of your own…..
