May 23, Saturday

Did a lot of thinning. Thinned Sweet Treat carrots and leeks to about 2 inches apart. Was wondering how to thin my very crowded mesclun when I realized that much of it is simple green leaf lettuce, of which I have a bumper crop (I've been calling it butter lettuce wrongly). So I pulled all the green leaf lettuce from my mesclun plantings and had it for lunch. Also thinned my green leaf lettuce rows to what looked like a decent spacing for heads of lettuce. That too became lunch.

The red leaf lettuce sprouted much more slowly and sparsely; there are even bald spots in the rows. I won't thin it until the plants are a bit larger. I did carefully transplant a couple of inopportunely sited plants into bald spots, then gave the bed a good soak. The 2 transplants basically lay down and died for a couple of hours, but by evening were standing up and soaking in the water like the others. When I'm sure of this crop I may pull the red leaf sprouts out of my mesclun plantings too.

Last summer I grew mesclun in very crowded pots on my front step. I know it will produce baby greens when crowded, which is how I ate it then. But I'm shooting for bigger leaves this year from at least some of my plants. It would be hard, if not impossible, to harvest enough baby greens for a salad each day from my little garden, whereas 2 or 3 big lettuce leaves are plenty.

                         [Click for larger view]

Mowed the front lawn. Raked samaras (maple seeds) from my front-yard planting beds, then swept them from the drive and sidewalks. They've nearly all fallen from the silver maples. The crimson Norways won't fruit until later. The lawn is crowded with samaras pointed nose down toward the soil, tails held aloft by the grass. They can't be raked out efficiently, so I'm leaving them. You'd think a lawn full of maple saplings would be a huge problem, and hundreds of them do sprout. But the mower hacks them down as soon as they're tall enough and that's that. Pulling them all from planting beds, out of the gutters, etc is a different matter.

Hung my finch feeder next to the bird mix and suet feeders. Then took some much deserved rest on the hammock while the cat amused himself with the rope I pull to keep the hammock a-rockin'.