Use scissors to thin vegetable patch

By Audrey Post
MS. GROW-IT-ALL®

Q: I planted a winter vegetable garden and now I need to thin it, particularly the carrots and the mesclun. What’s the best way to do it?

A: People who live in USDA Zones 8 and south have the luxury of being able to garden year-round, as long as they plant the right crop for the right season. Winter crops include carrots and mesclun, which is the collective name given to a mix of salad greens that can include several varieties of leaf lettuce, arugula, endive, kale, chicory and mizuna, an Asian green.

Initially, you can use the same tool to thin the carrots and the mesclun: scissors. Trim the carrots when the tops are about half an inch high; wait to trim the salad greens until they’re 2 to 3 inches high.

When trimming the tops of the carrots, cut the leafy tops close to the soil level. With no green top, no photosynthesis can occur and the root will never develop into the carrot we know. This will leave room for the remaining carrots to develop both above and below the soil. You’ll probably need to thin the carrots at least one more time before the final crop matures, but you should have baby carrots by then that you can pull and eat.

As for the mesclun, most varieties of lettuce in the seed mix are what is known as “cut and come again.” That means after you trim the young leaves, new ones will grow to replace them.
The carrots will continue to grow until you pull them. Your mesclun should continue to produce until temperatures hit 80 degrees F. regularly during the day, if you keep it cut.

Q: Is it too late to plant daffodils? I live in Florida’s Panhandle.

A: No, it’s not too late, but you’d better get busy planting the bulbs now. Daffodil bulbs can be planted from September through January through the Florida Panhandle. The green strap-like foliage of early varieties of daffodils has already sprouted, but you can still plant bulbs if you can deal with mixed success.

Early varieties might not perform as well as they would have had they been planted earlier, but you should still get some bulbs this year. Next year, the show should be better.