Woohoo! First Tomato of the Year

In all its glory...

 Picked my first ripe tomato today, it's the Oregon Spring one that's been hanging around for over a month.  In a normal year the first tomato would be picked in mid- to late June.  This has not been a normal year.  On the plus side it weighed in at 7.5 ounces.  Also the two volunteer cherry tomatoes I left in the ground still haven't ripened anything, so I don't think my late planting really affected the other tomatoes; they are right on par with their volunteer cousins.  It would seem that the weather alone has been responsible for the tomato tardiness. 

Tomato and the first two pickling cucumbers.

 The pickling cucumbers are finally beginning to produce, not a lot so far.  I have a dozen plants, but if they don't start doing better i will never have enough cukes at once to pickle.  The slicing cucumber is cranking out fruit faster than they can ripen, I'm guessing I'll have about 3 cukes ready to pick tomorrow and more a few days after that.

I didn't take a photo of the onions i pulled earlier this week, nor did I weigh them, they are curing in the laundry room/grow room/pantry and once cured they will be weighed in and photographed.  I only pulled the ones with good sized bulbs and developed skins, which accounted for about a quarter of what was planted.

Herbs (this basket holds about 2 gallons)

Also, above is the photo of the herbs I trimmed the other day.  Most of this is rosemary, which is buried under the thyme, sage, spearmint, and lavender.  The oregano wasn't big enough for trimming yet, and the cats have mauled the catnip too much to harvest.  All of these herbs were lightly rinsed (to remove spiders and dust), blotted dry, bundled, tied up, and hung to dry.  Once they are crispy i will strip them from their stems, crumble them a bit, then mix up seasonings or bag and freeze them, or fill my nearly empty spice jars with them.  I am a bit disappointed the oregano didn't grow more, I was hoping not to have to buy it for making Italian Seasoning Mix.  The mint and lavender will likely be saved for potpourri or teas, since I don't do much cooking with them.

The one other major thing I did was pull a few problem plants: the last celery that I left to flower for the beneficial bugs, the cilantro (it had long ago gone to flower and was seriously shading out the rhubarb and some peppers) and the dill that was completely infested with aphids and ladybugs.  I let the dill stay in the garden long enough for the ladybug eggs to hatch, and the nymphs to grow into adults, but they were failing at eating enough aphids fast enough so I moved them onto other plants and tossed the buggy dill.  I'm disappointed that I lost the dill before the cucumbers were ready for harvest though, i had hoped to use my own dill for pickling.  The nasturtiums have done their job of black-fly-aphid-traps so well that the aphids are killing them and moving onto other plants nearby, so I pulled a few of the most infested nasturtiums and left the others to continue their work.  Hopefully the aphids will stay out of the other plants again and move into the healthy nasturtiums.

Lettuce Culture

**most of my plant culture information comes from Wikipedia entries, opinions are all my own though.

Lactuca sativa, or lettuce, is a member of the Asteraceae family and actually makes a pretty little white or yellow flower similar to a dandelion if you allow it to bolt and go to seed.  When cut its stems ooze a milky white substance, hence the reason for the name Lactuca.  Some members of the Lepidoptera butterfly family eat lettuce.  In Ancient Egypt lettuce was considered an aphrodisiac.

Lettuce grows best in a humus rich, light soil, with constant moisture.  Lettuce prefers temperatures between 75 degrees and 45 degrees F.  A hot or dry environment may cause it to turn bitter and bolt, though this is less of a problem with certain bolt-resistant or heat-tolerant varieties.  Seeds can be direct sown into the garden or transplanted.  With a protective cover to keep lettuce from freezing it can be grown in mild climates nearly year round.

The primary types of lettuce are butterhead, romaine, crisphead or iceberg, and loose leaf.  Butterhead leaves have a buttery texture, they are similar to romaine, with less crispness and a shorter growth habit.  Romaine, or Cos, grows long leaves with a firm central rib, it is more heat tolerant than other varieties.  Crisphead, or iceberg, grows in a tight head similar to cabbage.  They have a crunchy texture and are generally the mildest flavored lettuces.  Loose leaf lettuce has tender, delicate leaves and doesn't grow a "head" but rather as a bunch of loose leaves.  Summer crisp or Batavian lettuce has a mix of traits of iceberg and loose leaf, being crunchy in texture and having only a moderately dense head.

The less bitterness a variety of lettuce has, the higher the water content, and consequently the lower the nutritional value.  All lettuce varieties will cross-pollinate easily, so be certain to allow only the cultivars you wish to harvest seed from to go to flower.

Lettuce is a fast grower, taking as little as 3 weeks to reach a harvestable size.  Remember to keep your lettuce plants moist, and protected from heat.  Slugs are the primary pest to watch for on lettuce, though cutworms can also ruin a planting by cutting the stems when seedlings first sprout.  Defeat slugs by baiting, hand picking, or laying down a copper barrier.  Protect from cutworms with a paper collar, or start lettuce indoors and move outside once they have a few true leaves on and have grown beyond cutworm edibility.  Lettuce can be grown indoors over the winter under a grow light or in a windowsill.

Mix varieties of red, green, and mixed color lettuce in a salad for a more interesting presentation.  Since lettuce varieties will cross so easily, try leaving two or three favorite varieties to cross-pollinate and see what exciting new crosses you can come up with.  For butterhead, romaine, or loose leaf lettuces harvest only the leaves you need and allow the plant to continue growth; crisphead is best harvested as a whole head. 

For planting: try planting lettuces under a fruit tree, in early spring they will receive full sun, and once the tree flowers and begins to put on leaves it will shade the lettuces leaves from the heat of the sun.  SFG suggests 4 lettuce plants per square, and they can also be interplanted between taller growing brassicas to protect and shade them.  If your tomatoes are ripening and you wish to have lettuces to go with them, try planting lettuce under the shade of the tomato plants, or in a shadier corner of the garden.  If all else fails, grow them inside during the hottest part of the year, in the cool of the AC.

You are unlikely to be able to preserve lettuce at all; it manages fine in the fridge for a few days though.  Be sure to stagger plantings every few weeks to ensure a crop all year and don't plant too many at once or you'll be swimming in fresh lettuce that HAS to be eaten, and can't be saved by preserving.

Happy lettuce growing!