Lettuce Do it All Again

It's Alive! One of two lettuce plants that survived the winter.

The Moon is in the second quarter in Cancer, so today is a great day to plant broccoli, cabbage and the like. However (Surprise!), a forecast for partly sunny and 50s after a SLIGHT chance of rain overnight turned into snow overnight and a high of 41. Less than an inch of snow fell by the time our alarm rang at 5:30 a.m.., but it is still falling. Fickle weather means spring has truly arrived in northeast Kansas.

We covered the areas where I intend to plant with plastic so it wouldn't get too muddy for digging. However, it looks doubtful that I will plant today. Tomorrow looks promising, though. At least we won't need to shovel this snow, as the high will top out over 50 tomorrow.

Last year I planted broccoli and cabbage just before we got several inches of snow, then planted the cauliflower after the snow. (I can't believe I deleted the picture of the cauliflower planting in the snow!) Each bed of broccoli and other cole crops will also contain rows of onions. This makes good use of the space and will help with pest control. Last year, one small bed of kale and collards was the only bed of spring cole crops that did not have a companion planting of onions and it was the only bed of cole crops that got aphids.

A few days ago I opened all of the winter lettuce beds and found two surviving lettuce plants. Lettuce, spinach and arugula seed were planted in two of the former winter lettuce beds, with hopes of early greens. We already have a couple of rows of spinach that wintered over that need only a little bit of growing weather to be big enough to harvest. Salad days are on their way.