A bit crowded?
I thought it would be a simple matter of thinning the seedlings over the course of a week and leaving, say, four plants in each square foot to mature and continue supplying leaves through the cool season. The lettuce had another idea—grow crazy fast, faster than we can eat the stuff. We are big salad eaters. Literally, we eat big salads. But we haven't been able to keep up.
There is still a lot of thinning to do. The leaves are packed so tightly that the lowest ones are in the dark, finally surfacing with an albino pallor that does not pique the appetite. In general, the green leaf lettuce seems limp. Characteristic of the plant? Or, of overcrowding? Delicious, nonetheless.
I was unprepared for the ordeal of washing the lettuce. Lots of careful rinsing and spinning of small batches. Larger batches suffer from too much handling, don't drain well in the spinner, and ultimately aren't fully cleaned.
The onions are looking happy and we are looking forward to picking some as scallions in a few weeks. Something is nibbling at the beans, but the peas are thriving. I'm not sure when to thin the carrots, which I over-planted. No rush.
