I harvested the spinach all in one go, if such a fancy word can be used. I got just about one serving. It was delicious, but definitely not worth the money I spent on the seeds, let alone the work. I read up on the issue and I am convinced it was due to a too warm and dry April. I will try to sow some again in August for a fall harvest. In the meantime, I had to go with an alternative plan not only for these patches, but also for those where I planned to put the failed bush beans.

That alternative plan is peas. Lotsa peas. Peas here, peas there, peas everywhere. I sown overall 500 g of peas. I filled every square dm of available soil. It is an unknown supplier, so I do not know if they germinate, although I fervently hope they do. However, pea is a true wonderplant – even if it does not germinate, it still enriches the soil. If it grows but fails to bear a crop, it still enriches the soil even more. And if it bears crop, it still enriches the soil.

I hope this year to have some success with peas because the frosty winter and dry spring have at least one good consequence so far – I am not up to my eyeballs in slugs. I only find two/three a day, and they did not destroy the peas that I planted earlier. The variety I have sown now should grow from germination to harvest in just two months, so two harvests should be possible. Therefore, I bought an additional 500 g of seed for that.

I mowed the grass in my coppice last week, and yesterday I raked it out. I still took out more dried tree leaves and old grass and moss than the fresh mown grass, thus I de facto acquired a second big compost heap.

I did not have fresh grass to mix in it this time, so I mixed in it ca 500 g of calcium cyanamide and wetted it thoroughly. We will see if it starts heating up in a few days. I also turned the first pile over, because it cooled to just 20°C about 10 cm under the surface. Deeper inside, it still had 40°C though. It is still soggy and fibrous and won’t be of any use for a while yet.

As I said, I already planted some corn and some beans outdoors. Most of it froze, but those planted near the south wall of my house survived, albeit some plants did get mild damage. I also started more corn, and I’d like to write a few words about it.

Corn has very delicate roots, and it does not take very well when they are extensively damaged during re-potting. Ideally, it should be sown directly into the ground, but I have had bad experiences with that. Last year, half the corn germinated several months later; it was stunted in growth, and it developed a wild teosinte phenotype, including the two-row ears. I did not know that corn phenotype could be influenced by weather this way. In retrospect, I should have taken pictures, but I only realized what the peculiar-looking grass was after I ripped it out as weed and threw it in the compost.

But I digress, I need to start corn in the greenhouse, and I need to plant it outdoors with minimal damage to the roots. Simply planting the seeds in the containers does not work well because it is difficult to get the root system out of the container without damaging it. Unlike beans, pumpkins, or tomatoes, corn roots do not bind the soil together strongly enough for that. Thus, I tried three ways to do it this year. All work well and have their pluses and minuses.

The first idea I got was when some of my old planting pots cracked lengthwise. I am using old yoghurt pots for my seedlings because they cost me nothing, and I accumulate quite a lot of them each year. They hold for several seasons, but eventually, they crack. I took a cracked one, I cut the bottom off, and I inserted it into another. It works very well for starting corn because the 500 ml cup offers enough space to get a substantial plant before the roots poke out of the bottom, and it is easy to get out without damaging the roots. It seems to be the best method so far; the plants behind my house were started this way, and they are already over 20 cm tall. Alas, I could not use it for all my corn because I did not have enough cups for my rather magnanimous plans this year.

Necessity is the mother of all invention. For the second idea, I used some corrugated cardboard that was left outdoors in the rain until it delaminated, and I lined some cups with two layers – one flat layer on the inside and one corrugated layer on the outside. Again, it does help to get the whole root system out of the cup easily. But the soggy cardboard does not keep the roots together as well, and more care is needed when planting and handling them. On the plus side, the cardboard can be left in the ground, and does not need to be carefully removed like the plastic lining in the previous method. I cannot let the plants grow as big as with the previous method, only because I had to use smaller cups.

For the third method, I collected paper towel tubes, cut them in half, arranged them in a flower box, and filled them with soil. When the plants are a few cm tall, they can be either put into bigger containers or directly into the ground. The downside of this method is that the plants need to be moved pretty soon, otherwise the roots crawl under the tubes into the flower box and get intertwined. The upside is that each plant can be easily and quickly plucked and replanted. The cardboard tube holds together well and need not be removed; it too will dissolve in the ground.

Overall, I hope to grow over 100 corn plants this year, discounting the ca 20 that froze (grrrr).