For years I sowed a whole packet of lettuce in one go, ate lettuce for eleven
days, and then had none.
The change
Sow a short row every fortnight instead of a long row once.
The crops it suits
- Lettuce and other cut-and-come-again leaves
- Radish, which is ready in a month and bolts a week later
- Carrots, early varieties only
- Beetroot, up to midsummer
- Dwarf French beans, three sowings, six weeks apart
The crops it does not
- Parsnips, one sowing, that is the whole season
- Leeks, which want a long single run
- Anything you grow for storage rather than eating fresh
The fortnight, in practice
- Sow row A on the first Saturday
- Sow row B two weeks later, alongside
- When row A is cleared, that space becomes the next sowing
- Stop six weeks before the first frost date, which for me is early August
What actually happens
I miss a fortnight in June, always, because June is when everything else needs
doing. The gap shows up in the kitchen in August and by then it is too late to
fix.
The fix is a note in the calendar rather than a note in a notebook.
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