Lettuce and Tomatoes in the Spring Garden

Succession planting of lettuce

When Paul started planting his lettuce crops about one month ago, he planned to maximize the harvest by planting the lettuce seed in succession. The first crop was planted four weeks and is now ready to harvest (figure A). The next stand was planted a week later (figure B). The last crop was planted just two weeks ago and has at least a couple more weeks of growing to do before it too is ready to go to the dinner table (figure C).

Thinning
In the bed of two-week-old lettuce, the crop needs to be thinned. This is an important task that many veggie gardeners, especially new and inexperienced ones, fail to do. By thinning, you remove excess seedlings in order to provide adequate spacing between the remaining plants. The process can be somewhat tedious, but it's essential to the success of the crop. The failure to thin leads inevitably to crop failure.

"Think of it this way," says Paul. "If you're feeding a family of five but only have enough food for three, then either two people are going to go hungry, or no one is going to get all the food they need. It's the same with plants." There is only so much water and nutrients available to plants. Thinning them reduces competition between plants and ensures that the remaining plants will get the water and nutrients they need.

Maximizing Harvest
To extend the harvest time of each crop over a period of several weeks, Paul employs the method of "cut and come again." Using scissors, he cuts the outer, or lower, leaves on each lettuce plant (figure E). The lettuce will continue to produce new leaves, and he'll continue to harvest them every few days, either early in the morning or late in the day when the leaves are nice and firm.

Planting Tomatoes
In his gardening zone, Paul is unable to harvest lettuce and tomatoes at the same time because lettuce is a cool-season crop and tomatoes are a warm-season crop. But since warm weather is just around the corner, he decides to go ahead and plant a few tomatoes.

Paul has chosen some heirloom varieties of tomatoes, including 'Mortgage Lifter' (formerly known as 'Radiator Charley's Mortgage Lifter'), 'Brandywine', 'Cherokee Purple', and 'Mr. Stripey'. Heirlooms are open-pollinated plants, meaning they've never been hybridized; their seed has been around for at least 50 years. They have that old-fashioned, great-tasting tomato flavor that store-bought tomatoes generally lack.

There are at least three ways to plant tomatoes. One way is to simply plant them in the ground with the stems and leaves above ground (figure F). Another method involves removing all but the top few leaves, laying the tomato plant on its side in a trench, and covering the stem and root ball with soil so that the leaves are above ground (figure G).

The next method is Paul's preferred way to plant tomatoes. After removing the lower leaves of the tomato plant with scissors (leaving at least three sets of leaves), he buries the plant up to the last remaining set of leaves. Through years of experience, he has found that this planting technique gets the plants off to a good start because the tiny hairs along the length of the stem develop into roots. As a result, the plant grows quickly with little or no transplant shock and is better equipped to deal with drought.

Paul plants his tomato plants about two feet apart and waters thoroughly. In about two weeks, he'll decide whether to stake or cage his tomatoes. To prevent erratic swings in the moisture level which can lead to blossom end rot, he mulches the newly planted tomatoes with rotten straw. Blossom end rot on tomatoes is technically the result of insufficient calcium in the soil, but it's often exacerbated by a lack of moisture. So by adding bone meal, which contains calcium, and a thick layer of mulch, the plants should be just fine.