|
March
In March, the glass spends most days and many nights leaning against a nearby wall or fence. Since the temperature is often above freezing, I keep the winter garden open most of the time. The plants are growing vigorously, and removing the glass cools the growing environment from February when the warmth under the glass occasionally bordered on too warm. Cooling the growing environment stalls the plants' rush to make seed (bolt).
When a spinach plant prepares to make seed, the shape and thickness of the leaves changes. The leaves become more triangular in shape with the tip becoming more pointed, and the leaf itself becomes thinner. The plant will also add height, and the quality of the leaves declines in taste. As the plant prepares to bolt, it will crowd smaller, nearby spinach plants and force them to bolt, too. It's best to remove mature plants as they prepare to bolt before they can ruin smaller plants. The younger plants will appreciate having more room to grow. The center of each spinach plant should be free of obstructions which block direct sunlight. Giving them this room insures that your harvest will extend longer into the spring. Also, when I harvest, I take all the outer leaves and leave the plant with no leaves touching another plant. I wait until mid March to apply a light dressing of fertilizer. This will probably be the last application of fertilizer in the winter garden this season.
By the middle of March, the vigorous growth of the spinach plants provides a harvest that is beyond a family's ability to consume. Arriving at neighbors' doors with surplus spinach to give away is always good for neighbor relations. It provokes warm thanks and expressions of amazement as your neighbors look at their own backyards and see only bare, cold, wet dirt. It also provokes thoughts of the commercial opportunities of Bloomsdale Spinach. The picture below was taken on March 16, 2016. The lower left corner panel was mostly destroyed by voles in early winter and replanted on January 29. By March, I've already thinned the plants, and I have a nice stand of young plants that promise a good May harvest. The other five panels have already been harvested twice, and I'm starting over for a third harvest in the upper right panel. (Recall that harvesting does not kill the plant. I take large outer leaves and leave small inner leaves to keep growing. The picture at the top of the page shows a plant ready for its outer leaves to be taken.)
March 16, 2016
In March, the pace of growth increases, and I can't give away spinach fast enough. Great bounty and good quality in March, in Nebraska, seems to me to be a commercial opportunity for enterprising, farmer types of people.
March is also planting time for spring crops, one of which is lettuce. By March, the surface of the soil in the summer garden may be dry and thawed out, but a few inches below the surface, the ground may still be frozen. If this is true, I'll set up a small cold frame over a patch of bare, turned-up dirt and allow the sun to warm it up and completely thaw out the soil so I can plant Buttercrunch lettuce, a type of Bibb lettuce. This is my favorite.
I begin by marking the boundaries of the patch and smoothing the dirt so it is level. Next, I add fertilizer and a layer of fine compost and mix this into the top five inches of the dirt. Next, I water the ground so the soil is pretty wet. I sprinkle the lettuce seed on top, and then sprinkle fine dirt on top of it, just barely covering the seed. A light watering completes the planting procedure. A screen goes over the moist soil to keep it moist until the seed germinates.
Once all the seed has germinated and the plants have had a chance to reveal which among them is the strongest, best rooted plant, I go through the patch and thin the plants. I leave one strong plant with 5-7 inches around it before it encounters another plant. This will yield approximately 35 plants for each patch, which I may thin further depending upon how the plants grow and my needs for lettuce.
I want to begin transitioning from spinach to lettuce as May begins, so I'll try to get my first planting in the ground as soon as possible in March. It takes a long time for lettuce to germinate in the cold soil of March, so I have to allow extra time between planting and the expected first date of harvest. I want lettuce to take over for spinach by mid May. After the middle of May, spinach is not reliable as a salad crop. I may find good spinach to pick until the end of May, but I can't count on it. It's better to have Buttercrunch lettuce that I can rely upon.
Back to Table of Contents
Back to home page
|
