First time growing spring greens, I got a flat of starts at the farmers market in early April and didn’t expect them to grow this quickly. My little raised bed is packed! Seems that they are absolutely thriving in this mild, rainy spring weather. Hoping to keep them through at least May, before the weather heats up and I switch over to my summer plants.
Swipe to see how it started 😉
Zone 7b, NYC, it’s such a treat to get to pick my salad greens fresh for every meal!
Growing:
– Boston lettuce
– ‘Salad Bowl’ lettuce
– ‘Red Sail’ lettuce
– Endive
– Red romaine
– Red Swiss chard
– Radish
– Parsley (holdover from last year – somehow survived winter)
I would like to try growing from seed for a fall harvest – any advice on when exactly to get started in the summer?
by Ornery_Treat_4479
7 Comments
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Beautiful nothing like a real true fresh salad 🥗
They look great! My lettuce has been beat to high heaven by wind and hail from storms. Still consumable but not pretty lol
Lovely! For growing from seed, you can start anytime but you will want to look for heat-tolerant varieties so they don’t bolt. For a September harvest you would want to start mid-July to August. Seed packets will say how many days to maturity though it’s an approximation, but gives you a general idea.
I love growing lettuce but hate harvesting it lol. It takes me at least 30 min to harvest lettuce for a salad because I have to inspect each leaf for bugs.its usually just a few small caterpillars I find but they gross me out.
And yes I know bugs are just a part of gardening and we eat so many bugs we just dont realize it, but there’s a reason why I never auditioned for Fear Factor.
My favorite thing about fresh lettuce is the shelf life. It’s astounding how long it last in the fridge compared to store bought lettuce. It really makes you question our food distribution system. I have cut and come again lettuce that’s been in the fridge for 16 days and is still great. If you harvest the whole head it lasts even longer. Just wild.
I do two sets of fall lettuce, one sown around July 20 and the next on August 20. I start them indoors under grow lights and transplant them out in early and late September, respectively. Plants will functionally stop growing by early November in NY, so you want them out in advance to size up. If you pick a cold-tolerant variety, like Rouge d’Hiver, Marvel of Four Seasons, or Red Sails, then you can keep them alive well into late November – early December, particularly with some frost cover (which is very cheap right now if you want to buy it in advance).
Also, just FYI since no one else has mentioned it — parsley is a biennial that bolts (produces a flower) in year two. Your plants are already bolting, which you can see from the rapid vertical growth and atypical, sword-shaped leaves. The taste will start to suffer, if it hasn’t already. You can let it flower for pollinators and potentially to save seeds, or you can remove it to free up some space for your greens to grow into.