Spinach and Lettuce Part 2

I had to pull out my spinach and lettuce today.  I'm kind of bummed that they didn't do better and I've been speculating about the reasons why.  I recently read an article about Thomas Jefferson's gardens at his Monticello plantation and it mentions that Jefferson talked and wrote extensively about both his successes and failures in the garden.  Its a good reminder for me that we can learn as much from our garden failures as from our success (although the successes are much more fun).

So I have a few theories about why the spinach and lettuce didn't thrive.  I think they both suffered from a combination of the weird weather we have had in northern Illinois this year (a hot couple weeks in March and then a cold April) and the general lack of direct sun on my balcony.

The lettuce plants had always been a little bit wimpy.  Even after I thinned them a couple weeks ago (which did help some) they still had very thin, weak stems that wanted to flop over all the time.  I think the problem was that I don't get any overhead sun on my balcony.  It only comes from one direction so the seedlings would always grow in the direction of the sun.  I would turn the container everyday to try to even them out, but they still didn't want to grow straight up.  I think because the seedlings were always stretching to try to get to sun they grew very thin and stretched out so eventually they weren't able to support the weight of the leaves. 

The spinach seemed to be doing better than the lettuce initially.  It grew bigger and stronger stems and was actually able to hold itself upright.  But this weekend I noticed that it had started to bolt.   What that means is that it started to go to seed.  After that happens the leaves can get very bitter and not good to eat.  May is pretty early for a plant to bolt, but I have a theory as to why this happened.  Like lettuce, spinach does better when it is cooler.  I think because I was so focused on letting the spinach get as much sun as possible (to grow upright), the container overheated and the soil got too hot.  This is a problem in general with container gardening.  The soil gets warm and dried out really quickly.  Since the weather turned warm last week I've had to water all my plants everyday to keep the soil moist enough.

Bolted Spinach

All is not lost however in my quest to grow greens.  I'm attempting lettuce again, but this time I'm starting with plants rather than trying to start from seeds. I think that will help with my sunlight stretching problem.  There is still a chance that it is too warm now for the lettuce and it might bolt like the spinach, but I've put it in a bigger container and I'm keeping it a little further back and out of the direct sun so hopefully the soil will stay cooler.

I've also planted kale a couple weeks ago since I wanted some sort of dark green for cooking to replace the spinach.  I've never tried to grow it so I don't quite know what to expect.  It seems to be doing well so far.