Vegetable Review

Vegetable: Lettuce

Variety: Buttercrunch

Seed Co: Territorial LT392

Description: Crispy and crunchy, very light textured. Semi-heading. Great for sandwiches and fresh eating.

Sown: 3/15/08

Transplanted: 4/17/08

Germination: good, very slow comparatively, took about 12 days to fully germinate

First Harvest: 5/25/08

Days to maturity: Stated: 48 Actual: 40-50

Held in field/length of harvest: Was good eating from May 25 through July 5, or about 5 weeks

Problems: Very attractive to slugs, I had to put Sluggo down once a week to keep them from getting eaten too much

Results: Great spring lettuce, held for a very long time without bolting. I probably planted too much at one time, and should have split my indoor sowing into two groups 3 weeks apart. I’ll be planting more soon for fall and winter harvest.

Transplanted at four weeks old under plastic during a cold month of April.

5 weeks later just big enough to start cutting.

Vegetable Review

Vegetable: Snap Pea

Variety: Mega

Seed Co: Territorial PE629

Description: 3-4” long, thick-walled, stringless, edible pods on dwarf 30” non-climbing vines.

Sown: March 6

Transplanted: April 5

Germination: very good, 5 days

First Harvest: June 24

Days to maturity: Stated: 55 Actual: 100

Held in field: 2 weeks

Problems: Long to mature - this one took about 100 days from germination to harvest. When they did mature, they produced only half as heavily as the same amount of snow peas nearby. This "enation resistant" variety did not resist much - leaves were yellowing and flowers dropping a few weeks before the snow peas.

Results: The peas were sweet, very crisp and very juicy, but seemed to lack flavor. I'll be trying a different variety this fall.

June 14: Just about ready.

July 1: Enation sets in.

Vegetable Review

Vegetable: Snow Pea

Variety: Oregon Sugar Pod II

Seed Co: Territorial PE624

Description: 3-5” crisp green pods on dwarf, non-climbing 36” vines

Sown: March 6, indoors

Transplanted: April 5

Germination: very good

First Harvest: June 17

Days to maturity: Stated: 70 Actual: 90

Held in field/length of harvest: 3 weeks

Problems: Succumbed to enation (according to Steve Solomon) before 2^nd round of flowers could set pods fully

Results: Matured later due to abnormally chilly May weather which slowed growth. Produced twice as heavily as Mega snap peas. Crisp, juicy, stringless pods were great fresh or stir fried. Stronger “pea” flavor than snaps. Good eating even when peas were allowed to swell up.

Yum.

Fall crops

This is my first attempt at fall crops. From what I've read, the northwest has the perfect fall and early winter weather to accommodate a second round of most spring crops. Planting in mid-late summer, however, requires a little more thought than spring plantings. If, like me, your garden is not in your backyard and you don't want to go there every day, keeping seed moist and getting it to germinate outside is difficult. I moved my seed heating mat and covered flats out on the back porch and will be starting fall seedlings outside, then transplanting. As the days get shorter and the sun's path starts to move closer to the horizon, its' intensity diminishes and the amount of growing energy available to plants is less. This must be accounted for when planning seed starting or you could get caught by frost with immature crops. The first frost date is used to calculate when vegetables need to be finished by, unless they are frost tolerant or cold hardy veggies, or if they will grown under cover when weather gets cold. There's lots more to think about as well.

This weekend I started some seed for fall crops:

four 4" pots Cascadia Snap Pea
one 4 pack Fall Blend Broccoli
one 4 pack Early Cabbage
two 1 qt. Cucumber Bush Slicer
one 1 qt. heirloom Delicata Squash

I'll be starting lots more seed and trying to sow some outside for fall and winter harvest in the next few weeks.

Weeked update

Peppers have really done well after transplanting. I expected a little lag as the weather was really hot and sunny when I transplanted but they have continued growing and the fruit have easily doubled in size in a week! This is the advantage of proper hardening off for indoor sown and grown seedlings: a week of acclimating to days outside and nights inside/outside in the cold frame prepared these plants to transition to the outdoor conditions seamlessly.

Miniature Chocolate Bell and Italian Pepperoncini

Early Jalapeno and Dusky Eggplant

Last year my peppers were destroyed by slugs their first night out and never recovered to really produce anything. This year is looking to be much better.