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| Cima di Rapa, mostly side-shoots so they are a bit small. |
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| From the left: Shogoin turnip, Amber Ball turnip, Golden Ball turnip, and Di Milano A Colletto Viola turnip. |
The Shogoin turnips were mild raw, but not sweet. I'm planning on roasting the rest of the turnips which is supposed to bring out their sweetness.
The lettuces are getting a little bit bigger, maybe by December we can start harvesting them. Does anyone else have problems getting red lettuces to germinate? All 3 red varieties had very sparse germination on the homemade seed tape, but the green lettuces did great.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I feel like I've been eating nonstop for days.
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11 comments:
My lettuce germination was just the opposite, the Red Iceberg was up in a flash and the butterhead and romaine took ages and didn't have great germination rates.
I struggle with lettuce in general here. I have green up and going. Its very small still. Those turnips look so good! Its rained here nonstop for days as well, where I appreciate the rain, I could surely do with some sunshine.
Such a pretty variety of turnips - did you try the other turnips raw as well or just the Shogoin?
I've had varying degrees of success germinating lettuce, but it doesn't seem to be related to variety necessarily. I've even had different germination experiences within the same year where a spring sowing did well, but not a fall sowing (and I usually grow them indoors first and then transplant them, so weather isn't a factor).
Together with everyone else's comments, I'm thinking that the variety of lettuce is probably not as important as other factors such as how fresh the seed is, how it's stored, growing conditions, etc.
You have an impressive display of turnips! Shogoin is the only one there I have tried before, so the rest are new to me. I can't say I usually see any difference in lettuce germination based on color. I sometimes have problems if it is hot, or if I bury the seed too deep, etc.
Lovely turnips! I have some radish still in the garden but they are so shallow, the soil was too frozen to harvest them.
I am terrible about tracking germination for greens ... I always just direct sow the seeds (meaning to say I just toss a bunch of seeds around) and see what happens.
Hi Michelle,
My germination problems are probably just variety related then. They were all from new seed I just purchased from Franchi just a couple months ago.
Hi Texan,
I can imagine the heat in your long growing season making it hard on lettuces. Plus they grow so slowly in the beginning especially during the fall/winter. But it's worth it, winter homegrown lettuce is so fabulous.
The turnips are actually getting huge fast and they don't seem to mind overcrowding, I just pick the bigger ones and give the others room to grow. I can see why turnips were such a staple crop in the 1800's they grow fast and produce food even during cool fall and winter months.
Hi Margaret,
They all tasted mild raw either small or big but none of the turnips were especially sweet, but bare in mind the ones I tried grew up in fairly warm weather. We've just started getting hard frosts. The skins were still spicy, but not hot like a radish can get.
I'm getting ready to roast the peeled turnips now, they've been tossed with nutmeg, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, olive oil, and just a pinch of cayenne. It's a Martha Stewart recipe so hopefully its good.
Hi Dave,
Our soil is very heavy so maybe that affected germination for some of the lettuces. During planting I just covered the homemade seed tapes enough so the paper towels couldn't be seen anymore.
Hi Susie,
Wow, your soil is already frozen solid! I have to say I don't miss the bitter cold at all, it is so much warmer here than where I grew up.
Direct seeding is definitely where it's at, it's so much easier than starting indoors. I should give more varieties of greens a try, especially since we don't have slugs in the new garden.
I don't remember the red lettuces being hard to germinate, all did well except Little Gem. I planted Little Gem 3 times and never got a single seed to germinate. Those Italian purple top turnips are lovely and I like the flattened shape. Hope they were sweet and tasty.
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