by Julia Frisbie
April 5, 2022
First, an unrelated note: “It Starts with a Seed” Seed Share!
Is the April 9th farmer’s market on your calendar? Transition Fidalgo will have a booth where we will be GIVING AWAY seeds and perennial divisions! If you’ve been following the garden blog, you know that the only veggies I’ve planted so far in 2022 are peas, so it’s not too late to pick out seeds for your garden. And as long as you’re willing to irrigate, it’s NEVER too late to plant some golden raspberries, red raspberries, or thornless blackberries… all of which I am bringing to share. We’ll have activities for kids, Sequoia will be teaching two short classes, I’ll demonstrate soil blocking, and it’ll be a good time.
Saturday, April 9, from 9 – 2, with classes during this time
Anacortes Farmer’s Market, at the Depot at 7th and R
Time to Plant Salad?
Okay! Now for some information about growing salad! In April on Fidalgo Island, I start watching the ten-day weather forecast for a week of warm, gentle rain. Direct-sowing salad greens and radishes at the beginning of such a rainy period usually yields good results for me.
The seeds for lettuce, arugula, spinach, and radishes are tiny, and it’s hard to get them spaced out properly. If you’re an overachiever, you can start these veggies in soil blocks or 72-cell trays and then transplant them at whatever spacing your heart desires. If you’re… more like me… you can broadcast them thickly, with plans to thin and eat lots of them at the baby-leaf stage.
I like to plant my salad at the feet of peas, because I find as the weather gets hotter, the peas benefit from the weed suppression of the leafy greens, and the lettuce benefits from the shade of the peas.
I don’t have much else to say about this because, to be honest, I think harvesting and washing homegrown salad is a pain in the butt. So I don’t plant much of it. Maybe Anna Torgeson will drop some wisdom in the comments section; she grows the best spinach I’ve ever eaten!
