Growing Greens

The tiny lettuce transplants that looked so fragile when I put them in the ground a week ago now are thriving. They obviously are tougher than they look, since even the pounding rain we had didn't beat them into the ground.

For the first time, I also planted arugula, the spicy, slightly peppery green that can be used in a salad or wilted in an appetizer or main dish. I used seed strips, and three rows of them sprouted in 4 days. They are so neatly spaced I might try other seed strips. So easy! They will need to be thinned as they grow, but I will wait as long as possible and harvest the whole, tiny plants as micro-greens, which is all the rage these days.

Planting lettuce

My well-intentioned plans for planting a fall vegetable garden for the first time this year fell by the wayside. Both my husband, who was going to build a tall, raised bed and yours truly, who was going to do the planting, had a full schedule. So, instead, I decided a couple of the clay chimney flues that I use for my herb garden would work just fine. I bought Romaine and two loose-leaved varieties, including red tip lettuce, and planted them densely in one of the pots, sort of a mini-one-square-yard garden. I plan to harvest often, so hopefully, it will work.

I discovered baby lettuce is hard to transplant. With the exception of the Romaine, the leaves were so tender I mangled half of them getting them in the ground. Lettuce is easy to grow from seed, but I took the shortcut. I did buy some arugula and cilantro seeds, which I will start this week.