The lettuce in my "Salad Bowl" bed is looking good despite my best efforts to impede it's growth. I have to admit I'm not very good with the hardening off stage of gardening. Yes, I did acclimate the lettuce seedlings by putting them outside for two weeks but I left them on the shaded front porch and didn't get them used to the sun a few hours at a time. All of a sudden they were getting too big for the APS pots and had to go in the ground now! I pried them apart as best I could, stuck them in the bed with lots of compost, watered gently, covered them with row covers to shade them and then left for San Francisco for three days. Thankfully they forgave me and after looking near death and tattered they have staged a surprising come back. I call this my "Salad Bowl" bed because in addition to the lettuce I just planted onion and shallot bulbs here and will plant parsley shortly. That way I can just walk off the deck and grab what I need for a salad.
I've also had the broccoli, pak choi and purple cauliflower sitting on the shady front porch and with a few days of forecasted clouds decided to get them into the ground as well without fully adapting them to the sun's strong rays. I don't really recommend this to anyone unless they use row covers or shade cloth. It's an experiment for this lazy gardener that so far seems to be working out well. I mean who really has the time to be trotting your plants in and out of the sun every few hours for a week? Certainly not me!
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