market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Market Farming
List archive
- From: "Marlin Burkholder" <glenecofarm AT planetcomm.net>
- To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: [Market-farming] Lettuce in April
- Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 00:18:41 -0700
For a number of years I have tried unsucessfully to
time my early lettuce plantings so that I would have saleable sized lettuce
heads ready to harvest soon after the opening of our local farmers' market in
early April. My experience has always been that lettuce transplanted to
the field in mid March here in our zone 6 climate finds it still too cold and
will simply sit there in a state of dormancy until the weather is warm enough
and only then will take off growing and come in around the middle of May.
We all know that any dumb fool can grow lettuce in May. It is a fact that
on several occasions I have found myself harvesting at the same time lettuce
plants that were seeded a good month apart, the second direct seeded in the
garden around the same time that I was setting out transplants of the first
seeding.
This year I had several stretches of black plastic
mulched ground that were left over from last year and still in fairly good shape
so on a hunch I decided to plug lettuce plants into it in mid March and cover
them with wire hoops and row cover. My reasoning was that maybe I could
make that lettuce think in mid March that it was late April and that it would go
ahead and grow. Last Saturday I took to market some of the nicest
and cleanest lettuce I have ever grown (no rain-soil spatter, no slug damage, no
magor weed battles) and despite it being a cold and ducky day I sold
out. This was my first and resounding success to get lettuce to market in
mid April.
Now come some interesting questions and
observations: The black plastic may make it too hot for lettuce as we move
into May. I've been thinking of pulling off the row cover soon but now I'm
wondering if I wouldn't be ahead to leave it on because it may be shading enough
to slightly moderate the heating effect of the black plastic. If the row
cover comes off, the black plastic should probably come off too, and I am
reluctant to do that when I've got such clean and nice lettuce. The other
observation is the effect of the row covers on the red tinted varieties. I
planted four varieties: Red Sails (deep red leafy type), Regina di Maggio
(slightly red tinted butterhead similar to Pirat), Ermosa (all green
butterhead), and Lollo Rosa (red tinted frilly leafy type. The Red Sails
is coming off with about one half the red intensity of Red Sails without the row
cover. The Regina di Maggio (Italian butterhead) is coming off all green
without the slight red coloring shown on the seed packet. And (most
interesting of all) the Lollo Rosa (from seed imported directly from Italy
through Bill Mckay's "Seeds From Italy") is coming off with an intensely deep
red color, much better colored than the Lollo Rosa strains I have gotten from
American seed sourses in the past and grown without row covers. This
suggests to me that this Lollo Rosa strain may be a really good candidate for
wintertime hoophouse growing conditions that would hold it's color well under
low light conditions. I already know that Lollo Rosa is among the most
winter hardy lettuces I have ever grown and has on several occasions
overwintered surprisingly well in this area outside with no
protection.
Marlin Burkholder
Shenandoah Valley of
Virginia
|
-
[Market-farming] Lettuce in April,
Marlin Burkholder, 04/24/2003
-
Re: [Market-farming] Lettuce in April,
Liz Pike, 04/24/2003
- Re: [Market-farming] Lettuce in April, Marlin Burkholder, 04/24/2003
-
Re: [Market-farming] Lettuce in April,
Lucy Goodman, 04/24/2003
-
Message not available
-
Re: [Market-farming] Hello from Oz,
Del Williams, 04/24/2003
- Re: [Market-farming] Hello from Oz, Marc Winterburn, 04/24/2003
-
Re: [Market-farming] Hello from Oz,
Del Williams, 04/24/2003
-
Message not available
-
Message not available
-
Re: [Market-farming] Hello from Oz,
Bill Bradshaw, 04/24/2003
-
Re: [Market-farming] Hello from Oz,
Marc Winterburn, 04/24/2003
-
[Market-farming] Chilli Man,
Liz Pike, 04/25/2003
- Re: [Market-farming] Chilli Man, Marc Winterburn, 04/25/2003
- Re: [Market-farming] Chilli Man, Allan Balliett, 04/25/2003
-
[Market-farming] Chilli Man,
Liz Pike, 04/25/2003
-
Re: [Market-farming] Hello from Oz,
Marc Winterburn, 04/24/2003
-
Re: [Market-farming] Hello from Oz,
Bill Bradshaw, 04/24/2003
-
Re: [Market-farming] Lettuce in April,
Liz Pike, 04/24/2003
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.