Jam-packed

I'm terrible when growing spring greens. I've thought about it a little and I'm pretty sure there are a few mistakes I make, but the main one is I'm not good at thinning. Some of the pots of greens I planted on my deck (for convenience -- no need to make the long trek down to the veggie garden) exhibit this quite clearly:

I plant densely, thinking that I'll use the thinnings in some early salads, but then the days and weeks go by and the next thing I know I've got a little lettuce lawn.

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This lettuce looks quite good -- healthy, delicious.

It's not. It's incredibly bitter. Inedible, at least to my taste buds. The overcrowding was one factor in this. (The too-hot weather we had this spring didn't help.)

That's nothing though compared to the horrible, ugly spinach:

Good thing I planted these so close to the kitchen -- I sure did get a lot of delicious salads out of this! (No, I really didn't as you can hopefully tell.)

Another neglected pot on my deck contains what was a lawn of Agastache foeniculum seedlings a while back, and is now a forest of larger plants.

I considered thinning these out, but decided I'd rather let them fight it out and see what happens.

I expect them to all stay much smaller than they would if given the room they need, and I'm hoping for tons of blooms. It's interesting as I review these photos that I see some of the 'Pink Pop' seedlings in here, as well as a few cilantro seedlings (that are tiny yet still bolting) towering over the Agastache.

Now on to some plants that I'm glad to see have filled their pots. First up, a Sempervivum that I repotted not too long ago, and is already crammed in:

Lastly, a beautiful but delicate Sedum that doesn't really seem like it's spreading, but easily grows from even a single tiny leaf:

The leaves fall off with just a small touch, so having this ability to quickly and easily self-propagate is a great advantage.

So some plants crammed in equals bad, and other plants crammed in equals good.

I'm choosing to remember the good and forget the bad... which is probably why I have a hard time with spring greens every year.

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