Urban Gardening - Mid-April

Sugar pea seedling going no where fast.

It has been unseasonably cold around here – about 10-20° below normal. Plants don’t like that. The cold air has put a moratorium on growth; seedlings have virtually halted their growth, or have grown very little. The sugar peas that I planted at the end of March finally emerged from the ground, but have only grown about a centimeter in two weeks due to the cold weather. We’re due for spring (for real) next week, so the garden can get on with getting on. Finally. (That groundhog is a good-for-nothin’ liar!)Turning the 6-pack into a 17-pack.

Leeks can stand the cold weather, so I grabbed a six-pack at a local nursery. Now, it's a 6-pack, but often times, individual cells contain more than one plant. If the plants are young enough, you can separate the plants without causing the plant too much shock. The best way to do this is slip one of the plugs out of the pack, and toss it on the ground so the soil breaks apart and loosens the roots. Then, gently pull the plants apart. I was able to get about 17 plants from the 6-pack. Plants are actually quite tough, if you give them a little TLC after roughing them up – by TLC,
I mean plant them immediately, and water them. (Don't try this with plants that are already under stress.)Leeks line up behind the lettuce.

Leeks develop the edible, white, lower stems by hilling soil up loosely around the base of the plant to blanch the stems. If you don't' hill, the entire stem will be green and tough. (Don't hill soil at the base right away, as young seedlings are prone to rotting.)I was tired of watering my floppy lettuce seedling in their 6-packs, so planted them in the smaller of the two pots outside the kitchen door – in Organic Mechanics Soil, of course. The lettuce seedlings are planted entirely too close together, but for the purposes of grazing baby leaves and not letting the plants reach maturity, close spacing is fine. I'm not sure what's destined for these pots later in the season –veggies, herbs, or ornamentals. Plans are great things, but so hard to make – and follow.

Urban Gardening - Early March
Urban Gardening - Early April