Nature’s way
It was a warm and windy day and I knew rain was on the way, so like a monkey on a tricycle I hobbled to the garden to tend to the volunteer lettuce. I had noticed three or four of them a few days ago, so this would be the moment to separate them and give the space they need to mature.
But what to my wandering eyes would appear… after clearing some henbit and chickweed, I found thirty or so healthy little lettuce plants. I was not surprised. Sometimes there are a hundred. This is the third or fourth year this variety of lettuce has replicated itself in that bed.
In mid-autumn, I get dozens of sprouts and plenty of lettuce for a while. A couple plants will be shepherded through the winter to spread seeds in spring when there will be dozens more little plants, more seeds dropped late summer, and we’ll do the same thing a year from now.
I don’t intend to make this process sound too simple, but it is. I performed the transplant of those seedlings this morning with a tablespoon because the soil has been well-prepared over the years. After watering, I placed a saggy rebounder over them for the day for shade to settle them in.
In a couple months, the ones not eaten yet will bolt and I will choose a couple, put a tomato cage around them, and wrap plastic around it that lets enough light through. I stake the cage because it gets windy here, even right beside the woods. During the winter, I’ll keep watch, but there’s not much else to do except regularly add a little mulch.
When the weather breaks in spring, my tablespoon, rebounder and I will mosey into action again. It’s easy.
But there’s more! Last spring, I chose a couple Red Russian kale plants as seeders and contained them with three stakes and creative twining, and now there are kale seedlings thick as clover in that bed. One person does not need dozens of kale plants, but the point is kale now lives here. I can give plants away or invest some of them in the compost pile.
Arugula, too. For years there have been arugula plants growing in the southeast end of the bed called Peaville. That section is now named Arugula Corner because seedlings sprout there at any time during the growing season. There are dozens of them clustered there now with leaves big enough to add to salads. All I did was tether a plant as it got tall and gangly to the trellis.
Peaville curves southeast to northwest, and in the pathway just beyond the northwest end is a patch of Japanese red mustard. I had already transplanted several of their cousins that sprouted in Bed #1 on the other side of the garden, so my culinary needs were covered. I use the leaves in salads or chop them up on lentils, and the plants are productive, so I do not need another patch of mustard seedlings. That is another aspect of letting nature have its way.
I mix amaranth leaves with other greens because they are nutritious and colorful. I also dehydrate the leaves and crumble them into a powder with brightens up dishes if you sprinkle it on top. Nutritious too, and the plants add a wonderful dark red to the visual. An amaranth plant bears thousands of seeds, so all summer, there are sprouts everywhere.
That’s nature’s way. Is that a problem? Will grumpy old white men in Washington impose a quota on my seedling count and a tax on the overage to pay for bullets but not education? For whatever reasons, along the way letting plants spread their own seeds has become part of my gardening routine. It might not be the way for all gardeners, but right now, I have more arugula plants than you do.