Hot Days, Cool Soils

I don’t have to tell you this spring’s weather has been a frustrating, hair-pulling experience. In my last post, I talked about succession sowing—that is, sowing a row of seeds of the same crop a week or two apart so you aren’t inundated with one big crop of spinach (or any other vegetable) all at once.

This spring’s cool and wet weather, however, had other plans. Seeds don’t really appreciate both cool and wet soil. So, instead of my planned weekly harvest of spinach and lettuce, as of last week I hadn’t had even one small spinach plant ready to pick.

It’s after Memorial Day, and as my garden neighbor put it, we went from end-of-March weather to end-of-June weather in the span of a weekend.

Bolting spinach

Last week my single row of Oriental Giant Spinach was about an inch tall. Five days later it began to bolt. In other words, when temperatures become too warm for comfort, spinach will suddenly send up a stalk, flowers and all.

The plants will do this as an “Oh my goodness, my life is coming to and end and I need to procreate” survival method. Usually the plant has been totally harvested before this happens, so it doesn’t get a chance to bolt.

My poor little plants were about two inches tall, not even big enough for a spinach salad at the Little’s home. As of now, my row of Tyee spinach is fairing slightly better. Duly noted for fall planting.

Uneven seed germination

Another sign of a less-than-spectacular spring is the uneven seed germination. My rows of seedlings look a bit like Morse code—a series of dashes and dots and a lot of blank spaces. I chalk this up to uneven bed preparation, totally my fault, but because there were depressions in the soil, those spots were wetter and cooler than those seeds planted on slightly higher ground. Dagnabbit.

This uneven germination is definitely a bummer. However, it does present me with a second opportunity to reseed with the same crop within that same row.

The seedling beets, chard, radishes, and spinach that dot the rows right now can be filled in with seeds. With the warmer weather, those seeds should germination pretty well. As for the soil staying less wet, well, we’re getting a soaking thunderstorm as I type this.