Harvesting from the mid April garden

Overwintering lettuce and chard

Sunday, April 11, 2021

This is the time for salads.  Many salad fixings are ready to be harvested from the garden.

The first to be ready to eat in the spring are all the cold hardy veggies that survived the winter and the edible perennials that are first up in the spring.

In our garden, the overwintering veggies were carrots, celery, parsley, lettuce, sprouting broccoli, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, chard, cultivated dandelions, chickweed, Egyptian walking onions, chives, mustard greens, arugula.  Edible perennials that are ready to add to salads are sorrel, tarragon, redbud blooms, and dandelion flowers.

I gave the greens a watering with liquid fertilizer, fish emulsion, which is high in nitrogen to get them the food they need for filling out.  Greens love nitrogen and cooler weather makes it less available in the soil.  A liquid fertilizer is an easy way to get usable nitrogen to the plant.

I started more lettuce and greens seeds indoors.  They are up and about 2" high.  I'll be transplanting them outdoors into a pot on the patio today.  After they have a chance to grow a little bigger and harden to the outdoor temperatures and sun, I'll transplant them out into their permanent spot. 

I am trying some new varieties of lettuce and greens that perform well in hot weather as well as varieties that have done well in my summer garden.  Sprouting broccoli, Red Malabar spinach, amaranth, New Zealand spinach and orach leaves thrive in the hot and humid weather and are tasty in salads.

If you want instant homegrown salads, visit your local nurseries and big box stores for ready to plant lettuce, spinach, chard, and other greens.  You get an unending harvest by taking only the leaves on the outside of the plants, leaving the inner leaves growing.