Thin, Thin, Thin !!!

(Did I mention thin?)

When I set up the container garden, I decided to take the 1st thinnings from the raised beds to plant in the containers, in order to optimize what had already grown.  I didn’t want to waste all those good plants by just ripping them out and tossing them!

I’ve done a photo comparison to show you how that worked out.  These plants are all the same age; the photos on the top show plants that were uprooted and transplanted, the plants on the bottom stayed in the ground; note the size:

Spinach

Butter Lettuce

Watermelon

Cucumbers

I will be ripping out the plants in the containers today (that should take all of 2 minutes) and will be planting the seed starts I showed you previously.  Hopefully that will go better.

Yesterday I went to thin the butter lettuce, something I’ve been meaning to do for over a week, maybe over 2 weeks.  I was horrified to find that about 80% of it had rotted at its base, and that there were big green worms eating away at it.  I chastised myself for once again, seeing how the lettuce appeared to be so lucious, so healthy- doing it my way; and not thinning as I had been told.  It was going to be a great salad this weekend…

Didn’t have my camera with me so took some shots with my flip phone…

Rotting lettuce pulled from ground.  Yummmmm!!!

These are the worms:

I suppose I’ve learned that it is actually wasteful NOT to thin and toss.

Today I will be a pluckin’ and a thinnin’ – carrots, corn, beets, onions.

04 Jul This entry was published on July 4, 2012 at 10:27 am. It’s filed under Gardening, Photos and tagged bugs in the garden, garden, Gardening, growing vegetables, Photography, sonoma garden, vegetable gardening, Vegetables. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.