Sowing In A Second Spring

The only suitable patch of yard left had the soil condition of an unloved schoolyard: an evil mix of old rubble, hard, dry clay and a tangle of Bermuda grass roots. I covered the broken-up clay with a mix of roughly 2 inches of compost and one of manure, and chopped it in, an overall ratio of six of soil to one of compost and manure. By contrast, a shovel driven hard into my "lawn" went in maybe an inch. Like so many Angelenos, I come from somewhere else, a place where summer is followed by fall. But standing in my garden this particular October morn, I can't suppress my glee. Mix of lettuces and other greens crossword clue and solver. I calculate the crop cycles like: There will be plenty of time -- the only stretches where you really can't plant vegetables in this town are in the inferno weeks of late August and in the midst of a February downpour. I dimly realize that it will take more springs, first and second, to figure out what I can grow and what I will lose to my particular combination of pets and pests. Soon this bed would be covered with dewy heads of lettuce, arugula, radicchio and endive. If you are working with sandy soil, you will need the compost to add organic matter, and help slow drainage rather than start it. Both are peppery, the arugula for salad, the nasturtiums to use whole or diced as slightly hot and vivid garnishes.

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Or, to get it free, go to city recycling centers and bring a truck or large sacks. Then I remembered why I don't and won't. Even rye grass didn't always catch here. Another pot, followed by a mix of radicchio, endive, mizuna and Batavian lettuce. How to get your garden growing.

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But when it came to finally raking over the bed, to feeling the fine soft mix of soil, I couldn't have felt more rejuvenated, more proud, more hopeful. To know how much to buy, measure your plot, then look for a key on the side of the sack to calculate how much it will cover. As the seedlings appear, I find myself rushing out each morning to water them. Mix of lettuces and other greens crossword club.com. I remind myself that my lip-smacking little seedlings have weeks to go, snails to survive, before meeting a glorious death under oil and vinegar. Nothing is more important in promoting growth, preventing disease and ensuring that water reaches but doesn't drown the roots of plants. As a break between the arugula and next planting, I put down a pot with sage, partly for decoration, mainly to discourage the dogs from trampling the bed.

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It's soil condition. First in, the arugula, which I interspersed with a new, lovely, pale nasturtium, Vanilla Berry. As I transformed myself into a one-woman chain gang, I didn't think of salad.

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It's taken four years to realize that I've moved to a place where summer is followed by spring. In fact, the health of any plant isn't the result of fertilizer or even seed type. Then there were the intriguing asides on the back of some seed packets: "Plant again in fall in mild climates. Yo, courtier, pass the beer. In the next stretch of newly tilled earth, broccoli raab -- those strong-flavored trim-line florets the chefs serve with lemon, olive oil, garlic and chile peppers. Mix of lettuces and other greens crossword clue. Assaulting the rubble, I never made it 2 feet deep. Breaking up the clay, picking out the rubble and, with increasingly ragged fingers, pulling out the Bermuda root took days. The dandelion is, in fact, a food plant and close relation to many of our favorite salad leaves. At 8 inches, I felt like Prince Charles, champion of organics.

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Mostly I cursed my refusal to use Roundup or other herbicides. It would, I grant you, have been easier to buy the arugula by the bag. I swear solemnly to them that I will routinely weed to keep the Bermuda grass at bay. The chicken manure will add nitrogen to the soil. Here are some sources for a starter salad garden: Renee's Garden "California Spicy Greens" seed mix with arugula, mizuna and endive is available from Orchard Supply Hardware and leading Southern Californian garden centers for $2. After disappearing from summer glare, dandelions returned to my lawn in September.

A pick swung harder, maybe 2 inches.