I'm growing a variety called Green Tower in full shade and it grows so fast. I guess the shade kept the heat here from causing it to bolt or wither. The wind blew it over becuase I haphazardly planted it, but it just bent upwards and kept growing. It's more than 2 feet tall right now and tastes pretty good. I just pick off a few leaves whenever I need them. It looks like it plans to keep growing too. They don't call it Green Tower for nothing!

So I was intrigued by this claim the first time I heard it and thought about the 21 days and huge profit and "Feed the World" possibilities. So I tried it a few times with several varieties and solutions. 3 weeks is extremely short for lettuce and I even felt that 5 weeks would be absolutely amazing. I have since settled down and realized that with lettuce production, it is profitable regardless of the length of the cycle. Fact is the 21 days could easily be applied to the transplanted seedlings as others on here have suggested. I can and have gotten transplanted Romaine seedlings to market quality and size in 14 days. The problem I have is the seed to transplant size, which I have only been able to cut to 5 weeks. (If I am lucky.) Good news is that the plants are small when they are in this stage so the real estate they occupy is much smaller. So being a lover of round numbers I have constructed my current garden and all designs for the future green houses around a total 10 week cycle. 7 weeks in the seedling stage and 3 in the transplanted stage. I get that we all want to utilize every possible inch for maximum production on the shortest most predictable schedule. I hope to gain at least the 3 weeks I cushioned back as I become more automated and the formulation is honed. Reducing the total time to 7 weeks would be ideal and I believe that 5 weeks may be possible if I add C02 emitters but believe that this would add significantly to the cost per head and do not think that I will develop a business case for this addition for several years because my production is still aimed at the hundreds of heads per week rather than the 10's of thousands of heads per week. I am just too small currently.

I have found that some plants can be grouped and fed the same way while others require special attention. Lettuce is one of the special ones. By this I mean it will practically grow in plain tap water. Another special plant are the hot peppers, which are my favorites besides Herbs to grow. Before I get to any level of detail, I would like to point out that my experience is in using either Deep Water Culture, or a Wick method. I have not done much Ebb and Flow or NFT hydroponics. That said, I found it extremely difficult to find ANY accurate information on the proper solution strength levels on the internet. Maybe its because I was growing mostly tomatoes, herbs, and hot peppers? What I found in those charts were exteme highs in the PPM or EC levels. When I first tried those levels, I found my plants mutating, leaves curling, dimples on the leaves, spots on the leaves, and all sorts of issues. So all my current EC PPM levels are in my head, as I have found my plants grow faster, picture perfect, and have tons more fruit if I use much, much less that what is recommended. Next I would say that most seedlings require a most mild solution. In this regard, I would recommend that you shake or mix your nutrients well befor adding them to your system as at first you will be using much smaller doses. For lettuce I start these plants out in my Aerogarden because Lettuce requires little light, and I can take the plant and its medium, and just move it into my hdyroponic system. For starters, I only use plain old tap water. My water is extremely clean where I live. The EC is .05 from the tap. It does contain some Chlorine and Floride, but that is it. Once those seedlings get their first set of true leaves, for Lettuce I set the EC at .15, Peppers about .20. For Lettuce I use the One Part Grow, and for Peppers I start them out and grow them their entire life in One Part Bloom. Tomatoe plants I start out at .50 and do the same, checking the EC daily to see how they are doing. For a maximum on Tomato plants, I typically end up with a heavy bearing plant at 10 feet tall with its daily solution set to 2.5 EC, of which it takes two days for that one plant to use all the nutrients although it uses about 10 gallons of water in that 48 hour period. In Deep Water Culture, the container size seems to make a difference on the strength of the solution. For example trying to set the EC to 2.5 in a two gallon bucket does not work as the plant cannot drink enough water, because as it does, the solution becomes to strong. Therefore, depending on the size and type of plant, the container does tend to control how much nutients you can safely add. I have never tried a container larger than 5 gallons for one plant. As the plants grow, I check the solution, and depending on how fast they use it up, I increase the strength. For example, if the Lettuce is initially set to .20 and at the end of the week the solution is only .15, then next week I leave the solution the same strength. If the plant uses all but maybe .05 of the solution, next week I will bump it up to .25. I only increase the EC until what I know is the maximum EC for each plant. For Peppers its .75 EC. What I mean is that some of my larger Pepper Plants have used up 95% of the solution in a 24 hour period of time, but I do not bump up the EC because when I do, bad things happen to my plant. I can tell you that I have passed on this knowledge to many other hydroponic growers and they have all verified that my recommendations work very well, much better than what they were previously doing. My friend works at a hdro shop, and I find myself talking to many people especailly on the weekends. I have a small following of growers who constantly ask for me, or come in only when they know I am there. My next soul searching experiment is to create a Deep Water Culture System that allows me to fill the container the plant grows into with solution, which the plant can consume until the water is used up or very low. This means an even lower EC solution. As my idea would be to create a large container that would feed all the plants for a week. So the one container would contain a set solution. This would then be pumped to each plant container, then at the end of a 24 hour cycle, drained, flushed with clean water, then filled back up with the same solution.

Your lettuce looks good. It's definitely bigger than mine. I have a few seedlings that look reddish. I need to get out my seed packet again and see what all was in there. Good looking helpers. Our older Sheltie walks around the yard with me sometimes. But I'm afraid to let the puppy out with me. She's so hyper. I don't think I could ever catch her. Those are the same type mantis egg cases that I've been finding on my shrubs and I think they are the big Chinese mantids. I've been debating whether I should destroy them or just leave them alone. I've seen photos of Chinese Mantids hanging out on hummingbird feeders waiting for a meal. Lots of henbit and chickweed in my yard too Helen. It's pretty easy to pull though if the ground is soft. We haven't mowed yet this year and we have tufts of wild onions everywhere sticking up well above the grass. There's some in my flower beds too.