Although, it’s still early in the Cleveland gardening season I’ve already made two big mistakes. The first was planting cole crops, specifically cauliflower and brussels sprouts, at the end of May. Cleveland is in Zone 5, considering that cole plants are “cool” weather loving plants, they are best to plant in the early spring or late summer for a fall harvest.

I ended up ripping mine out, but chances are if I would have left them growing they probably would have flowered, ending up useless in the kitchen. Another thing that helped me decide to rip out these plants was that early on they were attacked by cabbage worms, pretty much destroying all of the leaves.

My second big mistake thus far was going on vacation. Ok, the vacation wasn’t necessarily the problem, but I had a ton of lettuce in the garden that I wasn’t at home to eat. It got way too big, turned tough and bitter. So tonight I tore out about 10-15 pounds of romaine lettuce. It really kinda pissed me off, but those are the breaks as Kurtis Blow would say.

Looking on the bright side of things, tearing out all of those plants has opened up a good chunk of my garden. I looked long and hard for some things I can plant now and harvest in the fall. I settled on green beans, beets and turnips. Those seeds are now in the ground, with the all the rain we’re expecting this week, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re sprouting by the weekend. It’s amazing how fast things can turn around in a garden.

• It’s the Little Things – The Eating Cleveland Garden Project
• Jalapeno Recipes – How to Use a Bounty of Jalapenos
• Melt Bar and Grilled – Lakewood, Ohio
• Green Pastures Poultry – Pasture Raised Poultry
• Winking Lizard – Mentor, Ohio