I will bet you can start lettuce every day from today to march and it will work in seattle. why do you think you can not grow lettuce in seattle. The great grow season for Seattle is just beginning. You are in the only area of USA where you can truely grow spinach starting about now or soon in the future. Winter is the Seattle grow season. Seattle is very different from all other parts of USA. You need to get connected to local growers to learn all about growing in Seattle. Here is a link that might be useful: try this for help

~freshair, I just cut a top shoot from a growing plant, about 5-6 inches long, pinch out the growing tip, then remove the leaves on the last one or two leaf nodes nearest the bottom of the cutting. I dip the end going into the potting mix in rooting powder or clonex so that it covers a leaf node going into the potting mix (I'm not certain this is really necessary on this particular plant but couldn't hurt), then stick the cutting into a light dampened mix of Promix (brand name) potting mix and perlite, about 50-50. I've also just stuck the shoots into a small pot of dampened Promix (or any good quality, light potting mix). If there are large leaves on the shoot, either cut the leaves in half or pinch off some of them so the cutting doesn't lose a lot of moisture via the leaf surface. Now set a top half of a 2 liter plastic cola bottle (minus the cap) down over the pot and put them in the shade. Don't let the cuttings dry out. In a week or so you will notice new growth at the exposed leaf node. It is rare for me to have a cutting fail so I figure they are super easy. I mist the cuttings when I think about it but keeping them in the shade until they begin to put out new leaves is very important. Before I had a big butterfly enclosure to raise the little cats in, I'd take shoots from a growing MW, stick them into a block of moistened florist foam and use the MW that way to feed the little cats. They would eat those MW shoots right down to a stalk, even eating part of the stalk. If there were at least two leaf nodes left, I'd stick the lowest leaf node down into potting mix and almost everytime, it would root and grow new leaves from the exposed top leaf node. I've got some pots on my deck right now that have five or six little MW plants in each pot that were started this way. This variety of MW must have some good, strong genes! Give it a try and I think you'll find it very easy to multiply your tropical MW this way. I feel it is probably quicker than starting from seed. I have some tropical MW seed I planted a month ago and there are only two sets of true leaves on these little plants right now. Mary

Thanks for the confirmation that Sun King is a dud! Some of the sites that used to offer Coronado Crown substituted Belstar so it is good to know to avoid that one as well. Athlete F1 looks interesting in the pictures but 100-110 DTM??? I assume that is from seed but it still seems awful late (70-80 days from transplant). I'm not sure I could get away with it in either season here as it would not have time to head up in the spring before the heat when transplanted in early April. I guess an early August transplant would make most years unless we had a mid October hard freeze spell. Only a couple online vendors selling it...I assume it is fairly new? I've considered Blue WInd F1 as an early variety as well and might try it sometime in place of Early Dividend. My favorite local seed store stocks several Cornucopia offers and I bought 2 more packets of ED a couple months ago when they were half price so I am set on an early variety for a few years.

Seasoning time for bulbs is like onions and garlic- you can eat onions and garlic right out of the ground, but if you want to store or ship it, you need to let it cure a bit first. Bulbs are like that too. If you plan on transplanting them quickly, you can pull them and use them fresh. But if you want to hold them for replanting later, you need to give them time to season and really go on hiatus before storing them. I've moved around daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths no problem without seasoning if I do it directly. I also don't treat bulbs like a lot of folk do. When I get a package, I pot them up and grow them out for a year first before putting them into garden spots. After their blooming time is done, I empty out the pot and let the bulbs season till it's planting time in the garden later that year. It takes a year of patience, but most pots divide a lot, so I end up buying half the bulbs I would otherwise. Anyway.. I came to give an update. I planted in the first bed with plants, and the second bed will be finished by the end of the weekend. I haven't done any bulbs yet, because I figure I'll do all those at once when I'm doing other bulbs in the yard.