The Summer Salad Vegetable Garden

Posted by Jamie McIntosh Jun 24, 2009

I don’t know how Mother Nature managed to align herself with the calendar so perfectly this year, but our temperatures shot right up into the upper 90’s on summer solstice and haven’t come back down since. This weather is harsh to cool weather-loving plants like fuchsias and snapdragons, but it can be a death knell for spring favorites like pansies, lettuce, and spinach. If your pansies are still clinging to life with their last ragged petals, it’s time to replace them with hot weather annuals, like zinnias or coleus. If you’re lucky enough to have a salad garden that hasn’t bolted yet, it may not be too late to get a few more lettuce and spinach leaves for the plate.

Bolting occurs when warm temperatures signal the plant to produce flowers and seeds. In leafy greens, bolting brings out undesirable bitter flavors in the plants. Shade cloth can keep temperatures a few degrees lower around leafy vegetables, which can delay bolting a couple of weeks or more. If you don’t want to invest in shade cloth, an old gauzy curtain also does the trick. Perhaps this will be the year that the lettuce lasts long enough to top with some tomatoes harvested from the organic garden.