Last year around the end of March we had a late-season snowstorm. The temperatures dropped down into the mid-20's or so, but I noticed that the lettuce, spinach, and kale I had planted in the garden about two months prior looked really fantastic in this horrible weather. After it was all over, they exhibited no leaf burn or die back of any kind. In fact, they had never looked better!
Now I know that leafy greens need cold weather and will bolt with warm temperatures, but I never expected them to thrive like that in THAT kind of cold!
So this year I decided to plant my leafy greens even earlier to see what would happen. I'd love to have a longer harvest season, and it would be glorious to get something fresh from the garden during even the winter months.
I probably should have planted a fall crop to last through the winter, but I have to admit that I'm usually eeking out the last bit of production that I can from my tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini in the fall and haven't gotten around to cleaning up my garden by that point, so I didn't get a fall planting done. Instead, I planted lettuce, spinach, and kale seeds around mid-December, so we'll see what happens.
Those of you who live in this area know that we've had some tremendously cold temperatures this winter, and we also had about eight inches of snow at Christmas which is unusual for Lubbock. Obviously, with all this cold weather, my germination rates have been pretty slow, but I started seeing some green about two weeks ago. So far the growth has been very slow, but my seedlings have at least progressed enough that you can now see them on camera. Here are some pictures I took this morning. The lettuce and kale have germinated, but so far none of the spinach has - I'll keep you posted.
Lettuce seedlings - planted mid-December
Kale seedlings - planted mid-December
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