My vacation to the Cincinnati area early last month reminded me of a couple of the reasons I don’t want to live there. The heat and humidity have become harder to endure the older I get. It was only the second week in May and high 80s with high humidity was too much. Thankfully it only lasted a couple of days while we were there but once Summer hits, temps any lower than the 80s will be the exception. Summer here on the other hand, is mild and bright. Great for growing what would be a Spring only crop all Summer long but not so great for tomatoes in the garden spot, as evidenced by last year’s attempt.  Lush plants with many green tomoatoes but not enough heat to ensure they would ripen. I suppose I could have attempted some black plastic to heat the soil but I’ll stick with container tomatoes this year. The single container plant on the balcony performed beautifully for me last year.
Impatience got the better of me.. I purchased a zucchini start. Yeah, I have those three cells in the mango package but they weren’t up yet and as before, I was tired of seeing the empty space. I’ll either find a spot for the three soon to be seedlings or give some or all a way once they are ready to go. I am refusing to do the same thing with the cukes. The variety I planted is a container variety that will take up little space unlike the starts I found at the garden center. Impatience aside, I do have my limits.
The two suckers of the overwintered broccoli are getting big. When the baby broccoli harvest starts I’ll cut the mother plant back and allow the suckers to do their thing. I have this fantasy of a perennial broccoli.
I spent some time researching lettuce that should do well here in the Summer. It seems the oak leaf varieties are supposed to do ok. I stopped by the local garden center and picked up some seed to try. A few went onto a moist then rolled paper towel. Once in a Ziplock bag, I placed it onto the cool floor of the garage on Thursday. The temps outside had been too warm to germinate lettuce and I thought this would work. It did and much faster than I anticipated it would. By this morning it had already sprouted to the point of it being nearly impossible to remove from the paper towel without breaking the fragile roots. I managed to salvage enough for three cells and direct seeded three more with another slow to bolt type. I’ll have to get the names of the varieties and edit this post.
The radishes and pole beans I planted together are coming up nicely. Looks like I may actually have to thin the beans. Yeah.
When I harvested a couple of heads of Red Sails lettuce a couple of weeks ago I used a knife to cut the plant off at ground level, leaving the base of the plant in the ground rather than pulling the entire plant and cutting the head off. When I went to water today I noticed that both plants have suckers coming up around the stumps. I gave them some fertilizer before watering. I’ll leave these and see what they do, if anything.