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Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Lettuce
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Cooking Notes
Lettuce makes the perfect base for any number of salads. Try these eight great salad recipes with your harvest!
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If you’re seeding lettuce, water the seeds once or twice a day to keep them moist. Use a mister nozzle on the water hose to prevent blasting the seeds away.
Lettuce has a shallow root system. Once it grows, just keep the soil moist to keep plants growing continuously. How often you water depends on how dry your climate is. Frequent light watering causes the leaves to develop rapidly, resulting in high-quality lettuce.
Overwatering, especially in heavy soils, can lead to disease or soft growth.
Mulch to retain moisture and suppress weeds (unless slugs are a problem). Organic mulches can help moderate soil temperature and the microenvironment to produce quality lettuce in less than ideal weather conditions.
peas are very yummy
Hello, i am australian so it is much more warmer here, i am growing iceberg lettuce and the colour is a realy rich dark green, after 4-5 weeks or so, they start to turn a brown colour and start to die, 2 weeks more i have spotted little holes in the leaves, the soil is fine and they get watered around 5 o clock every night. I' ve been trying to grow lettuce for a year now but bugs or animals or something are eating them. Please any suggestions
First year with raised garden bed. Have no idea of what things should look like but my plants are doing well. Have lettuce. It isn't growing in a bunch per see more of leaf here and there. Was I supposed to cut these first leaves off so the plant forms a head or what? Or, do I just pick the leaves and eat them as is? Thanks!
Most of your questions/curiosity can be resolved above. Did you start with seeds? Perhaps you should have started these indoors... If you started with seeds outdoors, a number of things could have happened: birds ate them; the seeds were not consistently wet and/or warm enough; or they were too wet; or the soild was too heavy. The resulting crop should resemble the image on the seed packet, if you used seeds, or on the plant stick, if you bought seedlings. You can also do an internet search to find an image. When you pick the leaves, you should probably wash/rinse them to eliminate any soil bits. (Do not use soap. Water alone is adequate.) Then you eat them, yes. There is still a lot of summer left. Review the advice above, too, and consider trying lettuce again...
I've regrown some romaine lettuce from the base, and it was flourishing in the water I kept it in. The leaves began growing back and it has been sprouting up at a decent rate. I've recently transferred it to some soil in a jar by one of our kitchen windows and it is doing quite well.
This is the first time I am growing lettuce on my own. When would you recommend I pinch the top leaves off in order to encourage thicker growth at the base?
In addition to the above, what would you recommend for a small condo-esque garden?
Before I bought a home with lots of land to play, I lived in a condo....I had a small patio and an upstairs balcony....The condo had one good feature- lots of sun exposure. So, I decided to container garden. YouTube has some great videos on how to make towers and stacked growing areas for small spaces and patios... I started with a tomato plant, leeks(onion), spinach, lettuce, carrots, bell pepper and other peppers...all in pots like flowers......Eventually, I grew potatoes, sweet potato, English peas and cucumber......Just remember to fertilize regularly and don't flood water the plant...just water nicely every few days.....Nothing is impossible if you set your mind to growing it. LOL My cucumber vine had to be wrapped around my patio and supported with twine to hold it up...but, it flourished!!!! Make a goal...say to grow the ingredients to make salsa or homemade marinara for spaghetti. Good luck and happy growing!!!!
This is great advice! To grow more vegetables in small spaces, you may also enjoy these videos:
Vertical Gardening: http://www.almanac.com/video/vertical-gardening-grow-more-your-garden
Growing Lettuce and Salad Leaves in a Container: http://www.almanac.com/video/urban-gardening-growing-lettuce-salad-leaves-containers
How many days we need for the lettuce grow up completely in hydroponic way?
This will depend on temperature, time of year, the hydroponic system, and variety of lettuce (such as Bibb vs. iceberg), but ranges from about 20 to 80 days.