It’s another year where we will start serving up Spring salads from the garden. I had pre-seeded both cold frames last Fall. Both had been doing well though December delivering delicious salad greens. But by mid-January a combination of extended temperatures in the teens and a rodent invasion basically stopped the harvests. Leaving for Florida, we didn’t know what we would return to.
It was with great surprise when we returned a few weeks ago that not only the greens had resprouted but new seedlings had emerged from the rodent-ravaged cold frame.
In one frame, leaf lettuce, arugula, Swiss chard, kale, deer-tongue lettuce and mâche d’hiver are popping up in the neat rows that I planted last September. Olivia looks for a sample and she is not disappointed. In the other frame, which last year had a solid blanket cover of claytonia, tiny plants of the same are emerging from the ground. For a minute I consider transplanting some but determine that I will let nature and chance determine their organization and density.
This year looks like it is off to a good start.
