April Showers Bring May Showers

Well, it hasn't stopped raining here in the PNW and we haven't seen 70 degrees since November, but under my cloche the plants don't know the difference.

I have been harvesting radishes for a few weeks now and this past weekend my mom helped me get mountains of spinach and Red Russian kale into the house.

Last week I had my first all-garden salad and it was a revelation! I plucked some of the larger lettuce leaves and mixed in some very small kale, bok-choy, beet and chard leaves as well as a few Italian parsley leaves and some thinly sliced French breakfast radishes. A light dijon vinaigrette and a sprinkle of blue cheese really took it to the next level. Yum...

SLUG UPDATE:

I ended up addressing the slug problem 2 ways:

1. Slug pellets. They really are the easiest, most maintenance-free way of dealing with slugs in a large area. It was the best option for the lettuces and other densely-planted areas.

2. Copper. I bought a spool of copper pipe-hanging strap stuff for about $4 and fashioned little collars for the affected plants (kale, chard, broccoli).



SEED STARTING:

I started planting in the second raised a few weeks ago. It is partly covered in plastic and is now home to lettuces, fennel, beans, corn and some brussels sprouts that overwintered. I am trying to be mindful of succession planting so that I don't end up with the same kind of glut of those things as I did with the spinach, so I am planting one row at a time and leaving space to fill in with more of the same in about 10 days.

I discovered several volunteer (sprouts from the fruits that fell to the ground last year) tomatoes growing in the cloched bed and I decided it might be a good idea to foster them, so I picked the hardiest ones, dug them up, planted them in small pots and put them inside of a plastic tote (aka portable greenhouse), which I put in the sunniest window in the house. Within 2 weeks they had grown tremendously and I ended up moving them back to the coldframe so that I could start some cucumbers, basil and other warm-weather plants in the tote.

I started squash and corn in the cold frame a couple of weeks ago and they now all have decent-sized second leaves, so this weekend I transplanted them to bigger pots. It is still not quite warm enough for them to be out but I didn't want to stunt their growth by keeping them in tiny pots, so they will continue to live in the cold-frame for a few more weeks and hopefully they will be very strong by the time I get them into the ground.

.