Helen Chesnut's Garden Notes: Coolish spring has prolonged bloom

Many among us are hankering for warm and sunny beach weather, but the moderate temperatures this month have been a blessing for gardeners with a backlog of seeds and transplants long delayed in the planting by April night temperatures that were too cool.

Cool weather has fostered the growth of more big, succulent miner’s lettuce plants than I’ve ever seen before on the property. The plants have been fat and juicy even in the dry forest clearing behind the garden shed. I’ve been sharing the succulent, lilypad-like leaves and their juicy stems with friends for weeks.

Shelling pea vines trained vertically on wire offer useable spaces for small plants to grow along the pea vine bases. I’m trying three varieties of corn salad, for comparison, as edging for one of the outside edges of the two pea plantings. Alongside the pea plant bases are also lettuce transplants, some ready to harvest, and a row of both curly and broad-leaved endive.

There are several Amanita mushroom species that grow on Vancouver Island. There is a helpful list with photos at westcoastforager.com. The ones in my area are either fly agaric or panther cap . I suspect the latter, because the fly agaric is more often seen in its red form and the neighbourhood mushrooms are brown. They both have white spots.

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