It may be week 12, or even week 13, but I have lost track and have made some changes without taking enough pictures, so I'll have to catch you up on where things are.
The summer heat and almost daily rains are on us now and have been since I wrote last. Even the Romaine lettuce bolts straight up with too much heat and water. These plants overnight grew almost a foot taller than the plants next to them and in doing so, just the stem got longer. The leaves are the same, just now further apart. I have been cutting these plants each week for our salads (my wife loves this part) and providing lettuce, Kale and Swiss Chard to my family. I have continued planting Romaine most weeks, but it is so hot outdoors now I don't want to even be outside.
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| The garden this week after eating the Romaine, Kale & Swiss Chard |
The Swiss Chard now has 2 plants and all the leaves turned dark brown. I trimmed them back today and pulled the weeds and they should grow more leaves now. I just cut a few leaves weekly from here and the Kale, so we can enjoy some variety without wasting any plants.
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| The large Kale leaves |
The Kale has the largest leaves I have ever seen on one of these plants and somehow it tolerates the heat just fine. The second Kale plant is now large enough to produce leaves weekly. We eat these mixed with the Romaine, my daughter enjoys them by themselves. She took some leaves home with her during her last visit.
I'll keep with my plan to plant 4 Romaine seeds weekly. A few have not come up so I'll plant new ones in those squares and update the paperwork.
I know most gardens in the north are in their peak growing time. Our peak times hit in the winter, so we'll just have to keep going. My wife wants me to plant celery and I would like to try cucumbers, carrots and tomatoes again. A container with herbs would be nice (and could be indoors too). Sweet Potatoes and pole beans are on my list too, so I'll need a larger (outside) garden like the one I planned for this year but did not build. There is lots of time to plan for that.
Happy gardening!
