Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Mesclun! (Gesundheit)

Remember long ago when Sissy and I planted two containers with lettuce and mesclun seeds?

Well, here's how they're looking today:


The mesclun is doing great, if not a little leggy from working with what sun is available in the south-facing window in the bathroom. The lettuce is struggling a little; it had a longer germination period and suffered at least one noshing by the residential felines.

The good news is that the weather has warmed up enough that I placed both containers in our small greenhouse. Once upon a time the previous owners of our house had a nice little lean-to greenhouse added on to the detached garage. Running water and gas heat and exhaust fans and everything and it runs the full length of the garage. Story goes he was an orchid fanatic and grew his own orchids.


The next owners were not so much into the growing thing so they capped the water and gas off, leaving for us (only the fourth family to own this 100 year old house) a walk-in, three season cold frame. It's currently a bit of a mess inside, storing a haberdashery of warm-weather supplies. But that will soon change since most vegetable seeds need to be planted in the greenhouse by the end of the month in order to transplant when the last frost has done its deed.

In the meantime TMOTH will be adding some lumber supports to the planting bed that is normally our lettuce/spinach zone (great morning light, no harsh and hot afternoon light) so it will be ready for action soon.

And the baby garlic, nestled in their blanket of straw, are growing just big enough to give off a wonderful fragrance when the sun hits them right.

Thank goodness the growing season is so close! The other day Eowyn asked when we could go to the farmers market because we haven't been in a while. I just looked it up - the local farmers market opens April 10th!

I don't care what the calendar says, spring has sprung!

--Rational Mama

1 comment:

  1. I have a major case of greenhouse envy!

    Good news from our seedlings. I was just down in the basement washing diapers (uck) and checked on the seeds.

    We have broccoli up and the chamomile is up. :)

    That's only not even three full days since we planted them! The heating pads really do make a difference.

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