meh, forget the carrots as it will be too late to start.

My peas and broccoli finish up in late May. I'm afraid even in the shade that may be too late to plant greens. I usually plant lettuce and spinach in early March and April at the same time I put peas and broccoli in the ground, pull them out in late May to early June and wait until at least mid Aug to plant again outside and early to mid October in the greenhouse. Swiss Chard and Malabar spinach are more heat tolerant. You might get some plants going to pop in where the peas and broccoli come out.

Yeah. I guess you're right. It is about 100 days for brocc.

First of all, my planting times and dates are very similar to Dorothy's. We do not have an excessive amount of flexibility with cool-season plantings here because our cool-season is limited by whatever weather we have in any given year. How long cool-season plants remain productive depends heavily on whenever the hot temperatures arrive. Some years, it gets so hot so fast that my lettuce bolts at the end of April or early in May. Other years it lasts until June or occasionally July if I keep it well-watered and if it only gets early morning sun. Planting leafy crops late usually guarantees that by the time they sprout and start to grow, the heat that will shut them down is arriving. There's ways around that to a certain extent though.

Swiss Chard tolerates heat very well, even when grown in almost full sun. I still have a plant in the garden from last year that is producing, It likely will bolt later this spring,but I'll have new SC plants up by then.

Malabar Spinach can be planted late and grown all summer with adequate moisture, but some years it is just an aphid magnet (other years it is not).

Why can't you grow them all? Think outside the home gardening box and look at how Mother Nature grows her plants. How? All at once, with different ones (cool season vs hot season) coming into play at whatever time is right. They all sprout and grow together, mixed together, not in separate plots, and as each one achieves its objective (which, generally, is to flower to produce seed to ensure the next generation) and fades, the next one is enlarging and sort of filling in that space. You can do the same with your cool-season planting.

John Jeavons discusses this sort of multi-planting, companion planting or inter-planting in great detail in his book "How To Grow More Vegetables* (and Fruits*, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) *Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine)". He doesn't just offer specific planting schemes, but also explains how you choose which crops to interplant with one another. This book has been in print since the 1970s, which newer editions continuously revised to reflect the latest research on what works best. With over a half-million copies in print, lots of people worldwide use his biointensive techniques, and for good reason. They work and truly do allow you to grow a lot more food in the same space. You just approach how you do it differently

In Permaculture, these sort of mixed plantings also are done deliberately to enable the gardener to get the best, most sustainable use of the space available and are known as a polyculture. A polyculture is so much more efficient than a monoculture, and generally healthier and has less pest problems. Polyculture takes interplanting and companion planting to the next level by deliberately combining useful (mostly edible) plantings in a way that allows them to minimize competition for sunlight and nutrients (interplanting) and to blend together in a way that benefits each of them (companion planting). In a way, this is nothing new----Mother Nature does it all the time. However, in a gardening and farming world overly oriented towards straight rows of monocrops, this always seems like a "new" way to grow. It isn't new----it is adapting your garden to grow plants like Mother Nature grows them.

For example, you can interplant your lettuce and carrots with your onions plants as their different leaf types, rooting depths and light requirements allow for them to be grown in close quarters and produce good yields. One way to do this is to plant the onions and carrot seed in rows, alternating---onion, carrot, onion, carrot, onion carrot. Then, in between the two rows, sow your lettuce seeds. The onion foliage is mostly upright and the onions grow shallowly just beneath the soil surface, which the carrot foliage spreads out more widely and will shade the ground, helping keep the onions' soil cool and helping keep weed seeds from germinating. The carrots themselves grow down more deeply into the soil than the onions, and they grow straight down, so they aren't going to spread out a great deal sideways and compete with the more shallow onion bulbs. The lettuce will spread out even more widely and shade the soil and the lettuce plants will thrive in the amount of shade they get from the carrot and onion foliage. Lettuce works well in lots of combinations like this. I often grow it beneath/between tomato and basil plants.

Broccoli plants get huge so are a major player in whatever polyculture they're a member of. Spinach or other greens can be interplanted with the broccoli and thrive in the partial shade of its leaves. Onions can be grown with them as well---you're really just repeating the combination above but growing broccoli with carrots and lettuce. You also can add in a small-leaved form of basil in this combination as it will expand and fill in the space left behind after the cool-season crops are harvested. Or you can use parsley as a sub for the basil or lettuce. Or a mesclun mix. It is easy and the worst thing that will happen is that you'll accidentally put together some crops in a polyculture that will fight for the same space at the same depth or height or for the same sunlight. In our climate, though, most garden crops appreciate being in a polyculture that partially shades them, and that's doubly true of cool-season crops.

If you're going to grow vining peas, you can grow them to the north side of the planting, providing a fence or trellis to climb, Then, space your broccoli plants maybe 6" further apart than usual, and sow lettuce, spinach or a mesclun mix in between the broccoli plants. You can run a row of onions up the south side of this planting where they will get great sunlight. You could interplant onions with carrots, not necessarily onion-carrot-onion-carrot-onion-carrot (although that would work fine). Sometimes I plant in a checkerboard pattern with the onions being the black squares on the board and the carrots being the red squares. As the carrots mature earlier and are pulled out, the onion foliage spreads a little and takes that space. Or, as you pull out and use each carrot (or, as you use some of the onions as green onions), you just drop a lettuce seed into the now empty space, pat down the soil and water it. You'll soon have young lettuce plants sprouting to fill in the space where the lettuce was. You can have it all, and even all at more or less the same time. You just have to be willing to experiment with interplanting, companion planting and polyculture.

Mustard and kale can be planted anywhere instead of lettuce, but keep in mind that they can be more prone to bolt if the weather gets too hot too fast. I really do better with them as fall plantings that overwinter and can be harvested from fall through spring. As they begin to get ready to bolt, you'll see them getting taller and preparing to send up a seed stalk.

You can extend your lettuce harvest by sowing new seeds every week or two and then harvesting the baby plants when they are just a few inches tall, using the cut and come again method. If one planting is reacting strongly to the heat and preparing to bolt, that's okay. I usually stop harvesting them at this point and let them form seed heads. If the finches don't eat all the seeds, I'll get lettuce volunteers the following cool-season---in fall from reseeded spring plants or in spring from reseeded fall plants. RIght now, I have a lot of volunteer plants from Renee's Garden Seeds Emerald and Ruby Duet lettuce packet that grew this past fall from plants that bolted and set seed in June or July of 2014. Because these have overwintered, they'll bolt early as the daylength increases and the temperatures heat up, but by then the new plants from seed sown in February will be reaching a nice size and can be harvested to replace the bolted ones.

You truly don't have to choose whether to have this or that. Plant a polyculture and have it all. How's that for a new experience?

Nice! And I don't worry about the older bolting plants. They become seed, rabbit food or compost fuel. It's all good.

: )

My name is Dawn and I am a gardening enabler.

Yes. You are! Aww, heck. It could be worse.

Yes, yes you are enable encourager inspirer!!!

Hey. I didn't want to start a new thread, so I'll hijack my own. Do ya'll think we're craving the vitamns from the garden produce? I mean, rule out the excitement, the microorganisms in compost that make us crazy addicted (it's legit) and the feel of the sun (and its sanitizing and healing with Vit D), the chirping birds, e.g. And think just about eating. Now, eliminate the hankering for your favorite tastes, food prep and focus on how you feel after they are digested.

I wonder how much of what we crave is the nutrition? yeah, that's pretty deep physically, but I'm curious in a weird kinda way.

I miss the Egyptian spinach (molokhia) which doesn't surprise me. I would graze while gardening. I felt better. Over winter I take vitamn supplements. They help, but are short-lived and work in a manic fashion and is very disappointing.

Yes Bon I believe we do crave what we need. My old way of eating I never paid attention but now I do. I crave red cabbage and cilantro lately. For awhile it was carrots and onions, not together.
The little man was literally grazing on micro greens early this morning again. I had to put the whole tray on the table for him, he picks off the roots/soil and eats the top and stem like its his only meal. I will have to hide my plants I want to grow for outside or he will eat them too.
Kim

How sweet and wonderful that he is getting off to a good foodie start. Especially wonderful that he has such an attentive mommie :)

Oh I am the granny, actually he calls me papak. He is spoiled and if he wants to eat all my seedlings I guess I will just keep planting. I will keep broccoli and cabbage low and the rest higher. Really its a pretty cheap snack LOL
kim

I have been thinking about this lately. My grandfather had restless legs for years. After he died I developed restless legs. Recently I read an article that said that restless legs are connected to a genetic enzyme lack that interferes with the body's use of folate. Green leafy greens are rich in folate. My grandfather loved his leafy greens. (He died long before California spinach and lettuce showed up in the groceries of our small town.) He knew where to find watercress in March, wild onions, poke, wild lettuce and lambsquarters. He also grew greens in his garden, planting mustard and turnips every fall. I never heard him mention a connection to eating them and his legs settling down. He probably didn't know; he just knew he liked them.

For years we planted a small coldframe in the fall with spinach, lettuce and bok choy and ate out of it over the winter. It didn't provide a lot. When DH retired we bult a greenhouse and now have 5 or 6 times as much space to grow winter greens. And my legs are SO much better. I didn't make the connection until I read that article. But like my grandfather I have always loved leavy greens, whether in salad or steamed.

Folate is restricted by law in multiple vitamins so trying to "feel better" by taking a high powered "B complex" can actually make the problem worse, since there is so little folic acid in relation to the other b vits.

Interesting. I have restless leg, my mother has it to the point the doctor calls it neuropathy, and we think my gram had it, though she couldn't really describe the pain in her legs. I was never big on greens before gardening. I WILL be looking for that article!

Your little man is very lucky to have his "papak". :D

Thank you for sharing your story about your grandfather and the connection to folic acid intake. That is fascinating. I should look into this, too. I have peripheral neuropathy. Magnesium helps, too.

I read about study where doctors were attempting to slow down or cease seizures in patients. They put the patients on a restricted carbohydrate diet, but high in fat and with some proteins. The concentration was on fats and low carb. They found this diet actually healed certain types of nerve damage.

But i think a bulk of my problems is because I'm so FAT. hahaha