Direct-Sow! — Advice from Storey's Garden Group

Advice from our Storey garden group leader, Carleen Madigan, came in on Friday to remind the garden group members who have not done so already to take our carrot, parsnip, spinach, bean, fennel, anise, and lettuce seeds home to direct-sow.

I had already taken home my seeds and direct-sown some. But I did take Carleen's advice and put a couple of zucchini and pumpkin seeds directly into the dirt.

In addition to direct-sowing some squash, I managed a few other garden tasks over the weekend. I transplanted some herbs into larger pots and transplanted a bunch of lettuce seedlings (do you call mini-lettuce plants “seedlings”?). I also started more lettuce in seed-starting cells. I did this rather than direct-sowing them because of limited garden space. I will rotate these new mini-lettuces in once I harvest some of the lettuce already in the allotted lettuce patch.

My allotted lettuce patch has a mix of Romaine,
green leaf, and red leaf lettuce growing.

And then, back at work Monday morning, Ilona Sherratt, one of the Storey garden group members, e-mailed the advice below to the group. It is definitely useful for any gardener who still has lettuce seeds and garden space. I thought the blog readers could benefit from her advice.

“Mix all your old lettuce seeds together and broadcast them in small patches (I do 2' x 2' squares) from early spring to late June. All kinds will come up. As they grow you can eat the thinnings, then let a half-dozen plants grow to heads. I also let some of my lettuce plants go to seed, and they will self-sow. I have some nice leaf lettuce growing in my garden right now that came up from last year’s plants.”