Master gardener Paul James loves the transition from spring to summer in his garden:
One of the most dramatic seasonal transitions in a vegetable garden takes place in early summer as cool-season crops begin to fade and their warm-season counterparts begin to take off.
Lettuce is a perfect example. I planted the lettuce in early spring, and during the course of about 10 weeks, I've harvested lots of leaves. Lettuce is a cool-season crop that prefers temperatures between 50 degrees and 70 degrees. As temperatures rise, the lettuce starts to bolt, and the leaves begin to lose flavor. It's best to remove the entire plant rather than continue to harvest individual leaves. You can pull the head, roots and all, out of the ground or cut off the plant at ground level and leave the roots, which will decompose and add organic matter to the soil.
Now I'm going to plant cantaloupe, a true warm-season crop that thrives in heat and will eventually spread its vines from the bed it's planted in to another. Cantaloupe needs a sunny spot and nutrient-rich soil to develop properly.
Because the lettuce zapped a lot of nutrients from the bed, I'm going to amend the soil with a hefty dose of aged compost and manure, working it gently into the top few inches of soil. Then I'm going to create a mound or a hill, and into that hill I'll plant five or six seeds about an inch deep.
As the seedlings emerge, I'll thin out all but the two strongest ones, and I'll mulch the bed with straw to conserve moisture and prevent weeds.
Another example is snow peas. Remove the dwarf vines, but leave the roots in the ground: as legumes, peas and beans add nitrogen to the soil by converting atmospheric nitrogen into a form that can be used by plants. The nitrogen is stored in the plant's roots. Leave the roots in the ground, where they'll slowly decompose.
In place of peas, I'm going to sow a block of corn, a heavy feeder that needs a good deal of nitrogen. Sowing corn in blocks rather than conventional rows is a great way to grow in a small garden. Simply create a shallow square furrow and sow the seeds roughly one inch deep and four inches apart. As the seedlings emerge, thin them to about 12 inches, and in the space of one square foot, you'll have four plants. The same four plants in a straight row would require four linear feet.
Because corn takes up a lot of room and because each stalk produces only two ears in most cases, it isn't the ideal crop for a small garden. But corn is a vertical crop, so there's plenty of space at the base for a crop that grows horizontally, such as watermelon.
Another example of transition planting is shown with potatoes. The fading vines are a sure sign that potatoes are ready to harvest. My potatoes got a fungal disease late in the season, so after getting the last of the tubers out of the ground, I'll work the straw mulch into the soil to boost the soil's organic matter and get ready to plant something else. I won't plant a crop related to potatoes such as tomatoes, eggplant or peppers because it might succumb to the same disease. Rather than compost the potato vines, I'll toss them in the trash to avoid reintroducing the disease.
