Planting Winter Spinach and Lettuce

Typically, the second week of August is when I plant my wintering-over lettuce and spinach. If you live in the south, you might want to wait until the middle of September, but those of us who live in the north can do it now.

Prepare the bed as usual. Clean up any leaves, twigs or other debris and weed out anything growing. Then add the soil amendments: kelp meal, organic alfalfa meal and azomite (A to Z of minerals including trace elements). Using a broad fork or pitchfork, loosen the soil gently. Rake flat.

I like to broadcast my spinach and lettuce seeds. This means that I throw them everywhere and not just in rows. It requires a lot of thinning later, but I can give the tiny ones to the chickens and we eat them ourselves after they are about as big as a soup spoon.

Cover the seeds with a fine layer of compost. Water well. You will have to keep an eye on the top layer of soil until the seedlings emerge. On hot, sunny days, this may mean watering several times. Once the plants come up, water well on dry mornings.

I will be covering these plants before the snow arrives and we will discuss this later. For now, rest assured that a bounteous crop awaits…