greens sampler update

What has happened so far:

February 22, 2013

The seed order from Johnny's arrives including some greens seeds that are intended for the winter greenhouse.  Included in this bunch of seeds are several varieties that are new to us.  Six seeds each  of twelve different varieties are planted in a 72 cell seed starting tray and put on the propagation mat.

February 25-27

All of the seedlings are sprouting.

March 14

Transplanted the groups of seedlings that were the largest into clear tubs.  This was the Bilko, a Chinese cabbage and Tokyo Bekena, an Asian green.

March 16

Transplanted the next largest seedlings into tubs.  This was the Tatsoi and the collards.

March 23-24 

The remaining seedlings are transplanted into tubs.  

April 4

Three weeks after transplanting this is the Bilko and the Tokyo Bekena.

Bilko

Tokyo Bekena

At 19 days after transplanting this is the Tatsoi and the collards.

Tatsoi

collards

 

At 12 days after transplanting the Mizuna, Vitamin Green and the pak choi.

Mizuna

Vitamin Green

pak choi

The above are the greens that have been the quickest so far.  I think that provided they taste good I will plan to start them a dozen at a time in each of the seasons of the winter greenhouse to see how they do with the shorter day lengths.

Below are the remainder of the greens.  They are much further behind even though they were planted the same day and germinated at about the same time.  They were transplanted later and an experiment for next time might be to see if there is a difference had they been transplanted sooner.  Instead of transplanting all six i now kind of wish that I would have transplanted them over a period of time and then compared how they fared to see if getting them into bigger pots and new dirt sooner makes a difference.

sorrel on the left and Golden Frill on the right.

arugula on the left, claytonia in the center and allstar mix on the right.

These are planted a little closer together and may need to be separated if they get to be too big.

rainy day in the greenhouse

Today was predicted to rain and then snow and I spent the rainy part of it in the greenhouse.  I picked some greens for a salad and planted some seeds for the summer garden.

These are the greens I picked for a salad: simpson lettuce, kale, red romaine and green romaine.  I ended up dressing it with a little homemade balsamic vinaigrette and some chicken salad.  It was pretty tasty.

Here is some of the red romaine.

The Simpson lettuce.

These are the tomato seedlings that were planted on February 24th.

These are Nikole's clay pots.  The are planted with kale in the center. The red colored plant is red romaine and then clockwise from the red romaine is Simpson lettuce, green romaine, spinach, butter head and green grand rapids.

This is the greens sampler that was planted  February 22 so we could try the greens that we will be growing next winter.  Some are starting to get their first sets of true leaves.

Pictured here are the flowers that are seeded sitting on the warming mat.  They are impatiens, bee balm and marigolds.

Images from Johnny's seed catalog:

                                             

                Impatiens accent mystic mix          Bee balm Panorama red shades            Marigold Queen Sophia                                                                 

first salad

I gave the Simpson lettuce a haircut.  I cut half of one of the planters down to about an inch above the soil. I am hoping to have successive harvests and by watching the calendar I should be able to know how quickly it grows back. 

So here is the newly trimmed Simpson lettuce.

And here is the salad that i made from some of the harvested lettuce.

Bowl of lettuce, salad with carrot, hard cooked egg and cucumber with homemade Balsamic vinaigrette.

Another shot of the salad.

When some of our other lettuces are a little bigger this will be part of a mixed greens salad.