Even though we are looking at temperatures in the 90s this week, we went ahead and transplanted the lettuce and radicchio. It would have been too big by next week anyway.

The colors will get much darker and more vibrant as things cool off this fall. In this picture, the darker red lettuce is a leaf lettuce called ‘Galactic’ that is generally a dark red. The lighter red (okay, so it just looks green in this picture) is a red butterhead type called ‘Skyphos’. We also have a green romaine, ‘Winter Density,’ a green oakleaf, ‘Panisse,’ and a red oakleaf, ‘Jamai.’

First off, we removed those horridly aphid-infested cucumbers from the Family of 4 Garden. We also raked of the straw mulch from any of the areas where we were planning to plant.

We planted the lettuce right along the drip lines, staggering the plants about 6-8″ apart on either side of the drip. The soil was BONE DRY even after we recorded more than 3″ of rain over the weekend! I’m guessing that unless we have more consistent rainfall this fall (yeah, right), we will probably lose some of these plants, just because the drip doesn’t have enough coverage in this super sandy soil. The emitters on the drip are 12″ apart.

Once we were done planting, we put the straw mulch back in a light layer between the rows of lettuce. Having straw mulch in a lettuce bed isn’t necessarily a great idea, because it can make cleaning the lettuce after harvest a bit of a pain. However, we really wanted the straw to help hold soil moisture and to keep the soil a little bit cooler for the time being. We also made sure we watered thoroughly.

Over in the “New & Unique Vegetables” garden we planted some green and red radicchio seedlings. (They both look green right now. Color development depends on cold weather.) We used the same planting scheme as with the lettuce. We also planted some cilantro in a small area in the Mexican Garden, between the peppers and the Mexican Oregano.

The leek and onion seedlings are still pretty small, so we will plant them in a couple weeks when there is more space to plant.