In Northern California its time for planting lettuce in planting pots or flats. If you live where it is starting to feel like spring (at least on the warm days) you can start planting under a cloche, cold frame or green house. Plant your lettuce outside or transplant them out under a cloche when they are a couple inches tall. I am away from my homestead farm this winter and planted this cloche in the fall at a friends homestead. I just planted a flat and put it with my lettuce under the same cloche. This one flat will give me lots of lettuce to replant the cloche which will soon be eaten and I will have some extra to plant in my first outside bed in mid march. I am in Northern California and at this time of year it can feel like spring one day and be snowing the next. I like to start some planting pots or flats for my early spring lettuce. I start them in a green house or under a cloche. If you planted a garden cloche in the fall and have some greens left you can just put your new flat right in with the rest of your winter greens. My favorite green house lettuce is "Bronze Arrow" which is also called Oak leaf by some seed companies. It also grows really well outside when it warms up a bit. I am planting lettuce varieties for both the green house and cold frame and for outside planting. Once it warms up I will have some little lettuce to plant into my outside beds. I will be planting Red leaf lettuce for outside planting. This one flat will give me a good start and then in a couple weeks when they are up and growing I will start another flat. It is easy to grow too many greens so it is best to do succession plantings. Planting lettuce about every two to three weeks from mid-February to mid April works good in our climate. That usually gives us a steady supply of lettuce from mid April to mid July. During the summer it is quite hot. To keep our lettuce sweet we have to sprinkle them every day in the heat. Even then it is not worth growing lettuce in the later part of the summer. We are lucky to have lots of water. If we had limited water we would have to stop growing lettuce in the beginning of summer. Keep it sweet, good to eat! Farmer Dave
Garden cloche Greeting Mary Ann I do make the cloches and they are very easy to make. Farmer Dave planting cloche ( photo / image / picture from Farmer_Dave's Garden ) You are inspiring me to put up a web page on my gardening site explaining exactly how to do it with pictures and instructions. It may take me a few days as I have other things to do today like a fruit tree pruning workshop and....more gardening and homestead chores the sun is shining after a big storm!! So for now... just get some black or white plastic pipe or some hazel nut or willow branches bend some hoops and not essential but helpful connect them at the top with a pole, pipe or piece of rebar as I did in the cold frame in my first post. The cloche in this post that I am planting with my Granddaughter does not have the top support and works fine if you never get snow, keep your hoops 2 1/2 feet apart. You can go 3 1/2 feet apart if you have top support. Cover with 6 mil plastic, or row cover. When I get up some good instructions I will let you know I will add a few ideas and tricks that will really help. Let me know how it works for you
Thanks, that's quite helpful. I can see the way you connected the pipe to the sides of your bed -- the end of the pipe slides in, I'm imagining?... giving me some ideas. Thank you again. Granddaughter is a cutie -- look at that blonde hair.
more cloche ideas Hi Mary Ann I am writing up some detailed instructions for cloche building but am also getting my seeds started and trees pruned so I will try to help you along a little at a time. You can just stick the plastic hoop ends in the ground but if your conditions are not just right they may spring out. I suggest using a wooden or metal stake a 18 inch piece of rebar works great leave about 8 inches above the ground and then just slip your pipe over it. Good luck Farmer Dave :-D
