Spring Growth

I took these photos for my Monday Seedling Update, but the reality is, they aren't seedlings anymore. With all the growth they have put on this spring they are bonafide plants.

The peas are about five inches tall and are starting to grab on to their supports. The spots that didn't germinate were reseeded last week. Those new seeds have just started poking up their heads. I wonder if they will catch up to their sisters. I have three varieties, Cascadia (snap pea), Mammoth Melting (snow pea), and Super Sugar Snap (snap pea).

The Gonzales cabbage is doing well. The slugs seem to leave it alone.

Other plants are getting eaten under the row covers. The Chinese cabbage seems to be one of the favorites this year. I think it is because it is the closest one to the compost pile.

I have no clue if my onions (Copra and Tropea) are doing well or not. They look pretty, but I haven't grown them in over a decade. Are they big enough at this point to form good sized bulbs when they should? Or are they too small? I'll find out in the summer.

I love my lettuce. I really think lettuce is one of the prettiest plants in the garden. The above lettuce is New Red Fire. It looks exactly like my Red Sails. I can't tell them apart at all. It seems silly to have two varieties that are the same, but I'm going to see which one bolts slowest in the summer and use that lettuce in future years. This plant has seen a couple of harvests already. I keep cutting off its larger leaves for my salads.

Merveille de Quatre Saisons has lovely smoother leaves than the others and its edges are round. I love how the leaves start really dark red and start mixing with green as they get older.

Australian Yellow Leaf was a trade from Dan. It is a shocking chartreuse and really quite pretty. It makes a great counterpoint to the red leaves of the other lettuce. It reminds me of Black Seeded Simpson. I hope it grows bigger than that variety. BSS would never get very big for me. It seemed best as a small lettuce.

Deer Tongue, for which I have no photo, is the last lettuce variety in my garden. I've had some germination issues with it. Sometimes when I plant seeds they all come up. Sometimes none come up. I understand that some seeds have lower germination for many reasons, age, how they were stored etc, but why are they all or nothing? I find this lettuce interesting only that it is different from my others. The color is just green. The leaves are flat and not all that pretty to me. Of course taste is always the issue. I won't know about that for a few more weeks and it is much older.