I'm trying to convince my early spring garden

that sex is overrated... but it isn't working.

This is called bolting.  Summer vegetables are desirable for the fruit that follows flowers, so flowering is encouraged.  Early spring crops or herbs are usually more desirable for their leaves, and once they begin to flower the plant stops putting energy towards growing beautiful, flavorful leaves and instead focuses on reproducing.  This is a photo of my collards.  My arugula and spinach are at it too!

I had high hopes for my spring garden this year as I started it plenty early enough.  I'm usually a bit late with it, but this time had it right.  I mixed compost and ash into the soil, planted my seeds and seedlings, and mulched my beds with leaves leftover from autumn.  And then I waited.  I must admit that I'm still rather childlike when it comes to planting seeds.  Though I fully understand it takes at least 7 days, if not 14, for seeds to sprout, I still go out and look at them the next morning, just in case.  And I check on them every morning after that.

This spring was a little different from past springs when it came to my early garden though.  I checked, and I checked, and I checked... and I got really, really sad.  There was nothing - not after one week, not after two, not after three, and not after four.  I began to think it must have been a really bad idea for me to hang a new birdfeeder right near my new garden, wondering if the birds had eaten spinach and snow pea seeds or sprouts in addition to sunflower seeds and millet.  And I began to feel really discouraged about this gardening season; after all, early spring gardens are pretty easy to grow!

But then, I saw some green, and what I realized is that with a prolonged winter/cooler spring, the soil took longer to warm up and delayed germination.  Whew!  It wasn't me!  My seedlings were finally off to a great start.  But next we had several days when temps were in the mid-80's!  This will send young plants into their unruly late teenage days faster than anything else... and so, without producing big, full, beautiful leaves, my garden produced flowers.

I am still able to enjoy some great spinach since I planted a lot of it, and the romaine takes its time to flower, and though the arugula's flowering makes it quite potent, I like it that way - so I'm happy  with the results overall.  I also learned a great lesson about the intricacy of early spring gardens, and I now know how to watch the temperatures better next year.

My consolation prize with the collards is that I'll begin this year saving my own seeds - to plant either this fall or next spring.  I need to look into what's best as some seeds need to endure a "winter" before they will germinate.  It may be that if I want to plant the seeds this fall I'll need to put them in the freezer for awhile first.