Summer Seedlings: day 14

I'm following the summer crops that have been seeded in the Aerogarden seed starter.

We've just reached the 14-day mark, and I've re-filled with water and added nutrients.  We should be good for another two weeks.

Foliage

Here is what they look like on day 14:

Top view:

It appears like there is good solid growth on most species.  I would say that the Nasturtiums are doing less well than the others with yellowing of some leaves even while they continue to produce more leaves.

 Roots

The view from the underside tells more of the story:

Tomato root growth is abundant, as is the growth from the Dill and Basil.  These roots are lengthy and intertwined, possibly reaching the maximum needed for seed starting.  The pepper roots are coming along nicely, but they still have some development left

Tomatoes

The first thing that stands out is that the tomatoes have exploded.  They aren't too leggy yet, and they are not pressed up against the lights, but they have certainly grown effusively.  As I look closely, I can see that most cells germinated 3 and 4 seeds, leading to an abundance of stems.  I knew that I would have to thin, and that moment is obviously upon me.

So I trimmed the tomatoes back to 2 stems per cell and this is the result:

They're not noticeably different, but are in a better place for the future.  All seedlings are putting out their 3rd set of leaflets.  Some of these leaflets are protruding out beyond the grow lights.

 Roots like these are long, branching, and intertwined.  Some rootlets will be broken when separating them for transplanting.

Putting all the information together:

• Weaker stems have been removed, so we are down to the two strongest plants per cell
• Each plant is on its 3rd true leaf.
• Plant height is ample - not quite touching the overhead lights.  This is well beyond all other crops
• Leaves are beginning to extend beyond the lights, where they will probably wither from lack of light.
• Roots are well developed, branched, with fine rootlets.
• Any further root growth will likely be lost when separating the cells, due to breakage.

At the same time:

• the tomatoes will require me to raise the lights soon, even while other plants (like the basil) would benefit from having the lights closer.  
• the tomatoes are beginning to overshadow their neighbors, possibly restricting their growth.
• I am beginning to suspect that the tomatoes are hogging all the nutrients that the nasturtiums would like to use, leading to some yellowing

Taking all this information together, it looks like for the tomatoes, it is time to transplant them to pots under the fluorescent lights.  Any time this week they will be ready to go.  I would like for them to grow another leaf so that they have 4 true leafs before transplanting from the pot to the outside garden.  And some of these are destined for containers.

Herbs

 Meanwhile, the rest of the plants are developing nicely.  Peppers have modest leaf production above ground, and a few exploratory roots below the surface.  These plants look like they are good for another week or more in the Aerogarden.

The dill and nasturtiums are doing well, with good root growth and leaf development that is obviously a little further along than the peppers.  Any time after this weekend (day 21) these will be available for transplant into pots.

Summer Seeds

The time of the Cool Season crops is nearly over. My napa cabbage is going to seed, although the bok choi is beautiful. I know it's only a matter of time for it as well, though. I have been harvesting whole heads of cabbage and lettuce, recently, to hit the 1/3 target by the end of April, and that's mostly been achieved.
 April Challenges:
1. Remove and safely store the row covers. Well, the covers are removed, but I cant get a solid day of sunshine to dry them out for storage. So they are lying flat in the back yard.

2. Harvest at least 1/3 of your cool season crops. This has not been achieved. I've brought in 1/3 of my napa cabbage and butter crunch lettuce, but very little of the Bok Choi, Chard, and Kale. The last two freeze rather well. I definitely need to be more aggressive with my harvest.

3. Sow warm season seeds. Here, however, I've done much better.

 

Here, I have Tomatoes on the far right, Peppers in the center, Nasturtiums on the middle left, and a row of Dill on the far left.  Once again, I have been tremendously impressed with the Aerogarden's ability to sprout nearly everything.

Below are the dill, nasturtiums and peppers. Several of the Nasturtiums have come up, but not all of them have spread full cotyledons.  All the Dill is up, and most of the peppers but there are at least 2 cells that have produced nothing.

 

On the other side, the many rows of tomatoes are growing well.  I have three rows of tomatoes, with the third row (from the right) a patio cherry tomato that is designed to be self-dwarfing.  Other tomatoes include Roma, Better Boy.  Basil is in the fourth row.

 

I can see that 2-4 seeds sprouted per cell, so some painful thinning will have to take place in the future.  This is at about 7 days since sowing

April Harvest update

This month is the payoff of the winter garden.

Throughout the last two weeks, my harvest has been ongoing.  The lettuce, kale, cabbage, and chard have been abundant.  I have been snipping off individual outer leaves and it doesn't look like I have really made a dent in the lettuce.  It's gotten to the point where I have had to remove entire heads just to thin out the bed a bit.  The butter crunch lettuce is starting to form heads, which is very cool to see. I usually grow leaf lettuce and I wondered what arcane mystery was involved in this heading lettuce: it turns out the mystery happens all on its own.

I have removed the plastic row covers from the raised beds.   On the 17th, we had a low of 32 F. and on the 21st, we had a low of 36 F.  At this point, any danger of frost is over, and the cool evening temperatures would actually help these crops, to keep them from bolting.  The greater temperature concern now is from very high daytime temperatures inside the tunnel.

The other reason for the row covers is to give shelter against desiccating winds and soaking rains.  With the plants as substantial as they are, that is less of a worry.  The water table is lower so drainage is much better.  And the garden could probably benefit from any rainfall, at this point.

Hardening

Just wanted to confirm that I began hardening the Bok Choi outside for 2 hours.  It was an overcast day, with light drizzle that made it easy for the plants to start the journey outside.

Tomorrow, I will extend their stay into the evening, probably from 5 to 8pm.

the other plants are doing remarkably well, and the garden center starts are almost mature.  I mumbled something about waiting 2 weeks before harvesting, but I am nipping off outer leaves of the butter crunch lettuce already.

My replacement plugs arrived in the mail, and I purchased seeds to start in the Aerogarden.  This is the dilemma:  a package of seeds costs between $1.50 and $2.50.  With my limited garden space, I only have room for 5 or 6 tomato plants, total.  And when you consider the varietes, I really only need 1 or 2 cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, beef steaks, and so on.  So I could spend $2.50 on my cherry tomato seed pack and then look at another 6 weeks of hopeful watching, tending, and transplanting, or I could pay $3.50 for a really nice and good sized nursery plant and start it directly in the garden when growing conditions were optimal.

If I was going to plant 20 paste tomatoes for my tomato sauce kitchen factory, it would absolutely make sense to start them from seed.  But if I only need 2 roma tomatoes for my garden this year, it might make sense to go to Home Depot and pick out one or two of the best, even if they are at a premium price.

Much of this answer depends on how easy it is to start seeds in the Aerogarden.  With the limited success I was having with the Jiffy pots, this was an open question, and the Minimalist Gardener in me had no trouble providing an answer;  let the garden center take the risk.  But considering how easy the Aerogarden started my leafy greens (bok choi and swiss chard) and how eagerly they took to transplanting in 3" pots and from there to the raised beds, it might be a simple decision to make after all.

This first test with tomatoes and peppers will be very informative.

April Garden Update

Last post, I talked about the seedlings, some of which were added to the outside raised beds.  But there are a few crops already planted and growing well.  At the very end of February I planted butter crunch lettuce, and this is what it looks like after 5 weeks of growing:

There are a couple of the new arugula transplants at the bottom right.

According to the planting information, the lettuce will be ready in 60 days, which would put it at the end of April. Realistically, I could begin harvesting individual outer leaves in about 2 weeks.












The Kale and Chard are at about the same place, having been planted a couple days later:

Transplant March 5

And the Napa cabbage trailed by about a week so it will be ready in early May.

Growing for 30 days - April 4

I harvested a few of the outside leaves this evening for some greens to stuff my gyros.  Perfectly sweet and tender. 

Seedling Update

So we are a little over two weeks since our last post, and I was mentioning that I would need to re-pot the Aerogarden soon, because the seedlings were outgrowing the current situation.   The post was on a Thursday, and I did, indeed transplant about half of the seedlings into larger pots that weekend.  These went out under the 4-tube fluorescent fixtures in the garage.

This included all of the Bok Choi, Some Arugula, and two Swiss Chard.  I planted the plugs into a larger plastic garden pot, using generic potting soil.  When I opened the Aerogarden, the roots had grown together into a thick matted tangle, which I had to separate out with careful fingers.  Roots were snapped along the way, and I had to coil some around the pot to make them all fit.  This suggests to me that I probably should have re-potted sooner.

I didn't loose any of them, though, and they all seemed to like the new light, on an 18-hour cycle.  I also gave them a weak feeding of miracle-gro.  After two weeks in the larger pots, they became as you see them above, still rather compact, but pressing on the lights.

Emboldened by their eagerness, I took a small sample of 4 Arugula and 2 Chard and planted them in my outside garden, after a couple of days of hardening.  The garage is not heated, so they hadn't been in a climate controlled area for many days, and I still have the low tunnels up to enhance the microclimate So we'll see how they do.

This is what they look like in the raised bed.

The Arugula above is definitely looking a little ragged and I'm hoping a bit of space will help them even out.  The spatulate leaves seem to be yellowing, but new leaves are showing in the interior that are deeply lobed in the Rocket style, and are a much nicer shade of deep green.

The chard, to the right, is in beautiful shape. With a rich red color on the stems and veins.

Both of these had roots throughout the pot, growing out the bottom and up the sides, so two weeks seemed to be plenty to get them ready for outdoors.

These were seeds that I planted in the Aerogarden on March 4th.  It's about 5 weeks later and they are ready for transplanting into the garden.  My calendar for their progress looks like this:

• Week 1: planted seeds into aerogarden plugs.  By the end of the first week, all the bok choi, arugula and chard had germinated.  One week for germination
• Week 2-3: weeks two and three, the seedlings grew well.  Water and nutrients were cycled and light was on a 24 hour cycle
• Week 4: In the middle of this week, I transplanted the Bok Choi, Chard and Arugula into small pots.  2.5 weeks in the Aerogarden as seedlings.
• Week 5: Grew for 1.5 weeks in transplant pots under fluorescent lights.  At the end of this week, I transplanted into the garden the first half of the re-potted seedlings.
• Week 6: This is the transplant's first week in the raised beds.  I still have all the bok choi in pots for one more week, giving them the full 6 week start cycle.

That gives me about 6 weeks from planting seed to transplanting into the raised bed.  And these are for simple plants.  It is likely that other plants (like tomatoes and peppers) take longer to germinate and require a longer growing out period before they are ready for the garden.

So that means that if I want to plant tomatoes and peppers in the first week in June, I need lead time of at least 6 weeks to prepare seedlings.  If that's true, I should be preparing to seed peppers and tomatoes soon.

SeedWatch Day 14

Day 14 in the AeroGarden has seen a little change from when we left it a week ago.  The Bak Choi and the Arugula have been thriving.  Here it is at day 14 and you can see true leaves that are well developed

Germination was at 100% and I've known for a week that thinning would be necessary.  I seeded three seeds per cell and it was a simple, though not comfortable, task to pick the weakest of the plants to cull.  Here it is after reducing the herd:

The rocket was only double seeded and I didn't make any reductions there.  For each of these plants, the second set of true leaves is just beginning to emerge. 

These seeds were sown 14 days ago, and they germinated in about 4 days, so they have just 10 days growth on them, but they look like they are ready to be transplanted now.  In 4 days, they will have two weeks growth on them and could be transplanted then.  But to where? 

Put them directly in the Garden  I have a raised bed prepared for them, with a little napa cabbage growing at one end.  I could harden them off and plant the cell plug directly in the garden.

Re-pot them to a larger cell inside.  I could transfer them to a larger container of potting mix and grow them inside for another two weeks.  The clear drawback is that I don't have a place set up with as much light as they are getting in the AeroGarden now.  I'm not sure that another week of less adequate light will do them any favors. Perhaps I need to invest in another LED grow light for larger plants.

Re-pot them to a larger cell outside.  My raised beds have plastic low tunnel covers. Does it make sense to transfer them to larger potting cells and then grow them outside under the tunnel, rather than just planting them directly?  I think that would only make sense if I didn't already have space prepared to plant them directly.

Now, on the other side of the house, the Chard has had a limited germination, and the spinach has failed completely. 

Four out of the five cells of Chard germinated.  But the growth has been satisfactory, with a second set of leaves developing now

After doing a lot more reading, I'm beginning to understand the spinach problems.  The AeroGarden recommends that after germination, the lights should be run 24 hrs/day.  This gives the new seed leaves an abundance of energy, and keeps the true leaves from stretching and becoming spindly.  This has certainly been the case for the leafy greens I have right now.

Swiss Chard on day 14 after thinning.

But, the Bok Choi came up almost immediately and I had to turn on the lights. I have no doubt that this overheated the soil and prevented the spinach from germinating.  It was just too warm.  I've read the care gardeners exercise in germinating spinach, with paper towels in ziploc bags with alternate days in the refrigerator.  I wonder if I could germinate them first, and then transfer them to the AeroGarden cells to grow out.

Seedling Update

So it is two days later than my last update and technically day 6 of SeedWatch with a small burst of activity.

The previously sprouted Bok Choi has continued to develop, while over on the right the Swiss Chard have begun emerging, and even a single lone Spinach sentinel.

The main purpose of this record is to create a time log of how and when things happen.  I'm hoping that by documenting what I see now, I will be able to reference it in the future.  It gives me a baseline for what is normal.

Bok Choi, a close reading

Here I can see that my bok choi jumped right up in less than four days, despite being listed as 10 to 21 days to germination.  And this is from two suppliers, Burpee and Gurney, and the Gurney seeds were a mix of varieties.  None of this seemed to matter, as  all of the seeds germinated within a day of each other.

You can certainly see some variation among the seedlings:  the purple variety on the right seems to be doing very well, and even looks to be starting some true leaves.

I wonder if the top left cell is smaller because of a poor seed there, or if it is simply on the periphery of the seed tray, and may not be getting the same amount of water and nutrients.

I tried to plant 3 seeds in each plug, and in most cases, all of them seemed to germinate. Now, I'm faced with the task at some future point, of eliminating at least one stem from each cell, to give the other two a better chance to thrive.

The Latecomers: Spinach and Chard

On the other side of the seed tray, the Chard has definitely begun to emerge by day 6, while the  spinach is still lagging behind.  And both of these are listed at 7-10 days to germination, so I still have several days to watch them.  Perhaps it is too warm for the spinach to germinate easily.

It isn't surprising that different plant types would emerge from seed at different times, but at about the same time as each other.  Yet it is still interesting to see the process unfold.

I also like the fact that the purple bok choi variety above shows its color from its earliest days, as does the red legs of the chard.

The Minimalist Gardener

I also note that I have not been required to do anything for these seeds in the last week.  I don't worry about water levels, or fiddle with light timers, or fret about damping off or mold growth.  Not yet, anyway.  I've simply been free to watch the seeds unfold.

On the other hand, outside the temperatures have been in the 70s, with today's high projected at 78 F.  That's too high to keep things under plastic row covers, so I open the ends during the day, and close them up in the evening.  This is contrary to the tenets of minimalist gardening, so it troubles me a bit.  Perhaps agribon row covers would not have this problem?

Seed Starting

I have begun starting a new round of seeds in the Aerogarden.  The one thing I can recommend about the AG is that it has an extremely high seed germination rate.  These seeds were sown 4 days ago and have already come up with happy seed leaves.

Seed starting for me has always been a balancing act between opposing forces:  between moisture and damping off, applying a gentle heat but not to the point of drying things out, strong light for growth and to reduce stretching, but not too much to start algae.

It is like setting a series of plates to spinning and hoping to keep them up in the air for the next six weeks.

The Aerogarden keeps the plates spinning for me.  It can monitor all the variables and advise me if something needs attention.  Otherwise, it just does the work of growing and lets me enjoy the results.

Germination success is the greatest reward for me, but the system also has a fun interface that keeps track of all the little details.  Things like when I planted, how long they've been growing, all the details that puzzle me later on. The screen shows me the light cycle I have chosen, the days since seeding, monitors the water levels and the time until adding nutrients.  This means that I can be as hands-on as I want to be, but if something comes up I can neglect it for a week and the garden will take care of things.

Of course I'm not entirely satisfied unless I have put Excel to work in some way.  This is a planting diagram I pulled together that corresponds to the seedlings above.  So I can tell that the Bok Choi and Roquette have sprouted, while the spinach and chard are still thinking about it.

The lower bed

Napa cabbage

This is the lower bed, which I set up today.  The raised bed has been used for the last few years so the soil is in good shape.  There just isn't enough of it to fill the bed.  Today I added peat moss, compost, and one bag of actual potting soil.  The resulting mix was very light and workable.

This bed had been part of a high tunnel in the past but now I'm dropping it down to a low tunnel.  The high tunnel was creating too big a profile and kept catching the wind abs breaking ribs

Napa Cabbage is listed at 75 days to harvest but I need to subtract two weeks since these are already at the transplant stage.  That gives us 60 days from today, so around the beginning of May these should be ready to harvest. 

The March Challenge is to prepare the remaining three beds.  This is the first of those three.

March Gardening

In January, we consulted our planting schedule and garden layout to refresh our concept of what will be planted where for the spring garden. 

February was a month of preparation and assembling the structure of your garden. It was month of finishing the winter garden of October through January, and transitioning to the upcoming spring garden.

We bought and started seed, or located transplants from local sources.  And we sorted out the details of preparing one raised bed, setting up one row tunnel, and planting something in that bed.  If we haven't completed the February challenge, we should take as much time as we need to do it now.  February was the chance for sorting out the details.

March is the month for planting the Spring garden.  Now that the details are worked out, we need to replicate our success three more times.  We have three more beds to prepare, two of which will need row covers.

For each bed:

• Amend the soil: add 1 bag of compost, 1/3 bale peat, 2.5 qts vermiculite, 2 lbs of Garden-Tone, 1 lb rock phosphate or greensand. (This is the Andre Viette mix)  Mix this batch in a wheelbarrow and add to one bed.
• Apply this as a top dressing between existing plants, and more thickly when plants are harvested.
• Set up 5 hoops over the 12 feet of each raised bed, 3 feet apart.  Each hoop is 1/2" grey plastic electrical conduit roughly 8 feet long.  The ends are placed over rebar or inside 1" pipe.
• Cover with 6 mil plastic or agribon row covers.  20' by 10 feet.  That gives us 4' on the ends to reach the bottom of the bed.
• Use pvc clips to hold the cover to the end hoops.
• Secure the edges to 5/4 x 6" decking boards and clamp to the raised bed or weight to the ground.
• Turn the compost boxes.  Adjust moisture and brown material as necessary.  Consider adding one box to the tumbler to have it ready by May.

Harvest

Last month we began the harvest of the winter garden, which we will continue in March. 

Each week, harvest one cabbage head and one bulb of garlic.  Cut and  harvest one handful of Kale, and one parsnip as an accent root.  This will continue in April, with a final harvest in May.
 

Plant the bed:

• Consult the Garden Layout for the spring season.
• As the winter crops are harvested, replace them with the new spring crops:
• Transplant available seedlings from inside.  By now, started seed should be 4 weeks old.  You still have time to start seed in the first week of March, particularly to fill in gaps or harvested produce.  
• Purchase the rest of your transplants from garden centers.
• Work in 4' x 4' raised bed sections, planting groupings of 1 - 6, depending on the size of the finished plant.  
• You don't have to fully plant everything.  Feel free to leave gaps for later transplants or succession plantings.

Bed 1:
Continue to replace Cabbages and Garlic with the Lettuce and Radish group:  2 lettuce plants and 6 radish seeds direct-sown using seed tape or high viz coated seeds.  This should cover half the bed, so we'll need 12 lettuce plants.

For the other half of the bed, plant 2 Bok Choi and 6 Green Onions, for a total of 12 bok choi and 36 green onions.

Bed 2:

Replace Kale and Parsnips with:

Half of the bed: 2 Broccoli Greens and 1 Rutabaga:  total is 12 broccoli greens and 6 rutabaga

Half of the bed:  Swiss Chard, Red Onions:  total is 6 chard and 12 onions.

The March Challenge is to plant something in each of the beds by the end of the month.

March Photo Record #1

This is the exterior of the first raised bed with low tunnel as it was set up last weekend. This is assembled from 4 hoops of 1/2" grey conduit draped with 6 mil plastic.  Because of my troubles with gusting wind, I have clamped the plastic to the top of the raised bed using 2 x 6s and one in-elegant 4x4.

In the background, you can see another bed covered with a brown plastic tarp, weighed down with planting containers and concrete blocks.  That will be part of this month's project.

On the right is a look at the interior.  You can see the conduit hoops (used because they are UV resistant) set into 1" pvc that has been fastened to the raised bed frame.

This bed has been planted for about a week.  Kale is in the foreground, with chard in the middle and butter crunch lettuce at the far end.  I watered it about 4 days ago but you can see that the soil is still darkened.  The plastic creates a microclimate that conserves moisture, and condensation forms on the inside of the plastic.

With cool days as we have in March, I won't need to water much for the next several weeks.

I amended the soil with compost and turned under the leaf mulch that I covered the bed with last November.  When planting, I added Espoma Plant-tone organic fertilizer.












Below is a closer view of the bed

Leafy bed is planted

Just a post to confirm that the Kale and Chard have been planted in the upper bed.  The challenge on the February garden schedule was to get the first bed in by the end of February.  With an off-the-record midnight planting session, I can confirm that this goal was met.

Kale lists itself as 45 days to maturity so I can begin harvesting leaves in the middle of April.  Chard and Buttercrunch lettuce are both listed as 55-60 days to maturity, so they will be ready at the end of April.  Both of these should be picked young, starting with the outer leaves.

The high temperature today was in the low 70s, although at 6 am this morning, I was scraping frost off my windshield as I left the house.  The new seedlings are under plastic so they should be fine.  In fact, the lettuce that I transplanted a few days ago is standing up straight.  So any doubts that I may have had that February was too early for cool season crops have certainly been put to bed, so to speak.

So now I have the second and third beds to plant if I wish. I am following the garden layout I detailed here.   I don't have to do any more than one, but they are sitting there fallow if I am so inclined.

First Planting

In commemoration of leap day, February 29th, I felt I needed to post a progress update.  It is Monday, and this past weekend I planted the first batch of lettuce.  I still have today left to plant the other half of the leafy bed, with Kale and Chard.  But even if I don't get it done tonight, I will at least have reached my goal of getting something into the finished bed by the end of February.

The weather this weekend was between 32 and 38 degrees.  Today, it is projected to get up to 70 F.  By the end of the week, it will be back down in the 40s.  This is the challenge of February.

Winter Challenges

Winter means different things in different locations.  Here, the threat of winter is not so much the deep cold.  We seldom get temperatures below 30 F;  and nights in the lower twenties are an extreme rarity.  We will receive significant snowfall perhaps twice a winter, and that is merely a snowfall over 2 inches, usually in late January or early February.

Instead, what we are usually faced with are soaking rains causing saturated ground, and gusting wind.  Because of our flat terrain and low elevation, the ground drains very poorly, and gardens dug into the ground will usually remain saturated.  The solution is to build raised beds to dramatically improve the drainage.  With raised beds and low tunnels to give a modest amount of frost protection, but more importantly rain and wind protection, winter gardening should be fairly straightforward. 

This would be true except for the other factor of this area: gusting winds.  Winter storms can bring with them tornadic winds that will rip apart row covers, and poly film stretched over pvc hoops is especially vulnerable.  The danger is that you have a winter garden that you've nursed for several months, but one severe windstorm will tear your covers to shreds and then leave your garden exposed to desiccating winds or soaking rains, or both on alternating days.

So the bottom line is that structural integrity is the primary factor in securing the low tunnels.  In the videos, you see happy gardeners digging a shallow trench with a hoe and covering the loose plastic edges with a few inches of soil.  That is simply not happening here.  You'll be chasing your agribon into your neighbor's yard after the first weekend. I've had the wind move concrete blocks off the plastic.

So now I'm wrapping the ends around 2x6s and clamping the boards to the top of my raised bed perimeter. with 4" C-clamps.  It does secure the row cover, but it makes it more difficult to get into the bed when you want to harvest a few leaves for your dinner salad.

The result, however, is that we're creating an excellent winter microclimate.  Free from the wind and driving rain, with their feet dry but leaves moist inside the dome, and with plenty of sunlight, winter plants have what they need to thrive.

 

Markers February 2016

The state of the mountain:
The upper bed has been prepared and has been covered with a tarp for the last 6 weeks.  The lower two beds have also been covered with tarps for 6 weeks, but the beds beneath them have been too wet to work.

This past week I put up the hoops  (8' grey electrical conduit) and covered them with plastic to further seal out the moisture.  The rainy weather has been constant for at least the last week, and it snowed on the 15th (last Monday)  so the pattern of having the most miserable weather in February has been holding constant.

However, I have swiss chard seedlings started (Bright Lights) and ready to plant.  At the Walmart garden center I found 9-cell packs of Kale and Butter Crunch Lettuce.  Both of these are ready to plant in that upper bed, which is scheduled to be the Leaf bed this year.

I wish the spinach or bok choy seeds had come up by now, but neither has done anything.

The middle bed is too low, and is inundated with ground water.  We need to create a proper raised bed in that location to help the drainage situation.

I need to get large flat pavers to hold down the ends of the plastic row covers, and 2x6s for the sides.