Growing Lettuce
Things You Need to Know about Growing Lettuce
Growing lettuce can be a rewarding gardening hobby. It's relatively easy to plant straight into the ground as seeds, although some of the varieties do better with transplants. Butter and romaine lettuces grow fine from transplants or seeds, but crisp head lettuce does best if it’s grown from transplants. You should normally use transplants for growing head lettuce too – this type, planted with seeds, has a low success rate.
When you plant lettuce seeds, you should put them in the soil at a shallow level. Cover the seeds with about a half inch of soil. After you plant your seeds, water them well. You can add some fungicide to the soil to help prevent fungal diseases.
In warmer areas of the United States, you may be able to plant or transplant growing lettuce in your garden as early in the year as January. In areas that see colder weather, you will want to wait until March. Seedlings of lettuce that are tender and young may die if you have a hard freeze, but they may survive a light frost.
As your lettuce plants grow, thin out the weaker plants so that the stronger ones will get the water and nutrients. You also will need to make space so that each plant has adequate room to grow. Romaine and butterleaf lettuce need around 8 inches between plants, and crisp lettuce needs about a foot between plants.
Growing lettuce means a crop in the fall, usually about four months before you have a hard frost or freeze. You can plant seeds right into your garden if you're doing summer planting – just make sure that you give your new plants plenty of water, especially if you're having drought conditions.
Lettuce typically needs a lot of water to grow well. Keep the plants irrigated well, unless your area is seeing a lot of rain. If you are trying your hand at growing lettuce at home, you will want to use a hotbed, a greenhouse or a cold frame. If you use a cold frame, your plants will grow to seedlings in roughly eleven weeks. In a greenhouse or hotbed, they may mature in as little as one month.
When you want to transplant the seedlings, get them used to the conditions outside first. Set them outside for a few hours a day for about a week before you want to plant them in your garden. Increase their time outside daily before you transplant them. Be sure your garden is moist before you transplant your growing lettuce seedlings there.
Be sure to harvest your lettuce as soon as it is ripe for picking. If you leave your lettuce in your garden for a long time after it matures, the taste will be bitter and the leaves will be tougher in texture. Lettuce is usually ready to be harvested in about eighty days after you plant seeds, or roughly sixty days if you're using seedlings.