I Got a Fourth Planting of Lettuce

Bob Bauer

April 18, 2017 (Last Updated: March 06, 2023) | Reading Time: 2 minutes

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April 18, 2017

I got a fourth planting of lettuce in today. Why so much lettuce you might ask. Well, truth be known, my third planting didn't come up. It was on the wet side of the garden and I had covered it with a board. I didn't know you could drown lettuce seeds, now I do..

I lifted the board on my second planting of beets and found sow bugs, pill bugs, centapieds, millapieds, slugs and earthworms. Not a good idea to provide shelter for your adversaries. Boards will be monitored more closely from now on. It's better to let the soil dry some than to harbor pests..

April 19, 2017

I transplanted my tomato into the garden today because I can keep it warmer there than in the greenhouse. The spinach and lettuce in the greenhouse require my keeping it cool to prevent them from bolting, and the tomato prefers warmth. I circled the tomato plant with corrugated greenhouse plastic and put a lid of it on top. I can move the lid back, forth and off as the outside temperature changes. Clear plastic is on the ground around the plant to help keep warmth in the soil..

I cut off four of the bottom branches and put the root ball about 8" deep so that the entire buried stem will form roots. This may not be the way to get the earliest ripe tomato, but I'm going for a prolific harvest, unaffected by watering cycles. If you want to get the earliest ripe tomato on the block they make an orange colored plastic for the ground around it and Wall of Waters to surround it with..

April 20, 2017

The two zucchini transplants that survived are filling up the mini greenhouse that I put over them. They enjoy the extra warmth and are growing fast. Their stems are half gone at ground level, where the pill bugs ate them, so I don't know if they will ever be as hearty and as productive as undamaged plants. For this reason I planted another hill from seeds, and put my other mini greenhouse over it. They germinated and sat there for a long time, just mocking me..

We've had 60ÃÂ° days and 40ÃÂ° nights for awhile now, so they have reluctantly begun to grow. Slowly though. The melon are on a holding pattern, stubborn little babies. They still think it's too cold..

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