Lettuce can be thinned easily to another tray or two and then you can vastly increase your plant amounts. I like to thin/transplant and then have some to sell. Keep cool and under lights. Do not give any fertilizer. I think you will want to slow them down. I am starting my first lettuce next week.

"thinning to another tray" = transplanting? At what size? These just popped overnight, lots still have seed coats on, so sometime next week if it's warm enough to work in the garage? They're pretty crowded, but I don't want to handle such tiny delicate seedlings! Last year kale separated pretty well a month after germination - kept that at room temp (60's).

Yeah, I think I have to slow them down, would love to have 6-9 dozen separate cells to plant in ground or larger containers for sales to neighbors, maybe co-ops, eat ourselves unless I can find a market that starts before mid-June (crazy!). Even the grange plant sale is 1st weekend in June.

Do you think moving to 50-degree basement with grow lights will slow them down (but not stunt or kill them) until it's above freezing (not just high, but low) outside? I know spinach likes it cooler too but worry the basement might be TOO cool for lettuce?

A good rule-of-thumb for growing transplant lettuce is: 4 weeks seed to plant; 4 weeks plant to harvest.

You should thin to 1 plant per cell fairly soon to get better individual plant growth but there are different approaches to this crop. You may just want to let this planting grow as a salad tray and cut as baby leaf lettuce. Either way you'll be rewarded.

Yeah, Johnny's had 4 weeks seed to transplant out - I just didn't expect them to germinate so soon. The spinach is just popping out tonight too.

But should I have tried to put 1 lettuce seed per cell in the 72-cell flat (yeah, right! Where are my tweezers?)? Or are you supposed to pot up lettuce sometime in that 4 weeks inside?

I've got as many as 12 seedlings in 1 cell (oops) and 4-5 in others. How tall (1-2"?) before I thin?

Basement is 48.4 degrees

Instead of tweezers (my hand won't hold them) I use needle nosed pliers. And yes, 1 seed (if possible) per cell is ideal.

I'd say a couple of inches should be max before transplanting, an inch would be better.

As a small producer of lettuce, I have done better at mass planting of lettuces in some small pots or trays and then separating them and potting them up then putting then in the beds in 2-4 inch transplants. I know lots of people plant them in high count cell flats, but that has not been working as well for me, even direct seeding has been better at times (before my garden was "discovered" by pests). The trouble has been spotty germination and small transplants are too vulnerable here most of the time for one reason or another.

Large transplants are good for full heads....ready very quickly. Can't imagine doing market scale, cut and come again from transplants but for all I know that is the way to go for someone.

Love that pelleted lettuce seed from Johnny's. One seed per cell (72s).

So rustico, at what size do you separate them? What size pot do you pot up in before transplant? I'm just used to buying 6-packs.

Marla - I did count on some thinning, also didn't know how well this was going to germinate since seed was packed in 2012 for 2013, and I read lettuce seed is good for 1 year. I planted seed from leftover open packets that had been in basement, I have more in freezer.

If you have kept seed in freezer you would expect better germination for years afterward. I sympathesize with your situation though of planting one seed per cell only to have many blank cells. Just planted 24 lettuce varieties (6 -7x12 cell trays) from last year not knowing what to expect but it serves as a germination test for future plantings.

I'll admit that lettuce does not give me the return on investment to justify transplanting (repotting) effort. Maybe others will vary. I do use pelleted seed where I can get it and all but 2 of the varieties I started are pelleted seed. My method is to aim for a single seed per cell except for end rows of the tray where I aim for 2/cell. Pulling 2 plants apart at transplanting time isn't a big deal but it can lead to stunted or lost plants. If you use drip tape with known emitter spacing you could transplant into the "Wet space" and improve transplant success drastically.

I can't see that pelleted seed is worth it for me - maybe if I were selling to restaurants. But I had all this seed (planted what got left out of freezer, in with the kale seed packets) so want to do something with it. Never had a problem with transplants and drip hose.

But still wondering how big I should let these get before I try to separate them, if I should just take nail scissors to thin them, what size pot to put them in until transplant? This is first time starting lettuce indoors (kale probably went too long before going last year - we went on vacation in mid-April - but no problem potting up to 36's).

I'm trying to get co-ops interested in fresh produce, members can stop by farm to buy once a week in addition to monthly order pickup. May lead to a CSA? So I am trying to grow in quantity, then I'll pull it all in June when it starts to get bitter. Looseleaf cut and come again, but plan on Tom Thumb sold as heads (like those little ones that come 3/pack in store).

Plus I'm dying for some greens now!

I direct seed spring mix lettuce and transplant out heady leaf lettuces. I have been trying to keep them going all summer. Funny though that customers don't get impressed by having lettuce available in summer.

They're used to supermarkets having lettuce all year round.

Just got home from Girl Scout cookie booth, time to start pepper seeds, should I be trying to separate the lettuce (and kale, though I could wait for more to germinate) into individual cells today?

Ajsmama, From a 4' pot for example , about 30 plants, I split them when they are about 1.5 to 2' tall they don't have much body but they gain it very quickly after potting them up. On a really cool moist windless day I have put them directly in the garden bare root but those days are rare and I like putting in bigger plants now so they go into 38 cell flats or six packs. I don't really focus on lettuce though this is probably too inefficient for a real greens person.

I do brassicas mass planted and bare root to six pack size cells, anything smaller and they get stunted. I think it is because the soil temps swing too wildly with low volume of soil or the roots are out performing the tops for some reason. Sometimes beets even work bare root straight into the garden. Need those rare foggy cool very low wind days though.

I grew Tom Thumb last year hydroponically. The flavor is excellent. The outside leaves wilted easily, though, so it was hard to make a head of it look good to customers. I had another more modern mini variety next to it called Pool Ball. It did not taste nearly as good, but it looked much better, and would have been a better commercial crop.

Well, if I'm potting them up in 2-3 weeks, I'll have nothing but time then, started sweet peppers yesterday and got the cells filled for hots today (ran out of time to get seeds in before dinner - family was waiting for me). Next weekend of so it's broccoli and tomatoes. Then it's the long wait until spring when I can plants peas and potatoes.

We did have a lot of snow melt yesterday, and it must have gotten warmer than the 43 I saw before I went out to the garage to plant, but high today is supposed to be 25 (it's 22 now), 30 tomorrow before warming up mid-week again. Hate these wild rollercoaster temps.

Moved the trays of greens to the basement, lights on the lettuce and kale and only a little from shelf above on the spinach (only 3 germinated so far, maybe 67 was too warm for them). I'll pot them up when they get first true leaves.

I tried Tom Thumb last year but all that came up after seeding twice was red salad bowl, and not that much of it. Anybody try covering the bed with thin burlap (enough light)? I did that with carrots until they germinated last year - at least they didn't get washed out. Though they seemed to mysteriously disappear after I took the burlap off - I really didn't have to thin - and they kept disappearing.

Here is a little video I made of me transplanting lettuce. You can see the size of plants I was putting out.

I keep my lettuce seed in the freezer too. I am still using some from 2/11 and get great germination. Another reason I like transplanting lettuce is a packet of 500 seeds goes along way when put one seed in each cell. Very rarely do I get less than perfect germination. If i do, I just drop another seed in and forget about it or split up the few doubles I do.

I use pelleted seed and raw seed. The pelleted seed doesn't keep as long, but it is much easier to seed. Seeding a whole 1020 tray with 72 cells takes just a few minutes. I tried smaller, but I wasn't as happy with the plug.

I am cutting and selling these as whole heads. My usual time frame is 3 to 4 weeks in the trays, 3 to 4 weeks in the ground, then harvest. Using the high tunnels, you can roll through lots of lettuce if you are always starting more in the house.

Here is a link that might be useful: Transplanting lettuce.

Here is some lettuce I seeded on 3/6.

Here is the same lettuce 33 days later. It was a very warm and sunny Nov/Dec that year.

Here is a link that might be useful: Growth of lettuce

This post was edited by jrslick on Sun, Mar 16, 14 at 10:15

So the lettuce you'll put the lettuce in pic above (not links) out in HT early April - or is it warm enough there to put it outside? Hopefully I'll be able to get mine outside (maybe cover at night) in mid-April, mine are 5 days behind yours. I should probably plan on potting up later this week though, when they get about the size yours are in that 3/6 picture. Worst case if it's still too cold/wet to put out when they're ready (size in your video), I'll cut cut for baby greens.

Looks like if I do this again I'm going to have to try harder to get 1 seed per cell and not 5-6 (and sometimes 12!). I have had good luck with transplants in the garden - still have to get HT up but maybe this year (probably put tomatoes in the middle, then cover later to extend the season, don't know if I can get it up early this spring since still have snow and soon mud, so I haven't started tomatoes yet - also still waiting for some seeds - all early varieties though).

Cute picture with the little guy and those muddy girls!

This post was edited by ajsmama on Sun, Mar 16, 14 at 10:43

The lettuce in the picture will go into the high tunnel, hopefully in about 7 to 10 days. It will be a little small, but I am behind. I am ready to sow more flats this week. As the weather warms up, I will sow the flats, get them to this stage and move them out to the high tunnels to grow before I plant them. That way I don't have to harden them off.

An easy way to get one seed per cell is use one of those inexpensive dial seed dispenser. Just dump some seed in, or put a pinch in the funnel and tap it with your finger and they will slide down the funnel and fall off into the cell.

Yes the girls found a hole in a hose running through the yard that day and it was hot, I think my wife encouraged them. The little guy and I stayed out of that mess.

Oh, BTW, when do you seed your tatsoi? Direct seed or transplant?

I start my lettuce in 128 trays. I've gotten pretty fast and accurate at seeding 1 per cell. I dump a bit of seed on a salad size plate, hold the plate over the tray and with a finger from the other hand swipe a seed off of the plate and drop it into a cell. Your hands and the plate need to be totally clean and dry, and you need good lighting, but it really works. I transplant out after three or four weeks, when the roots are grown enough to hold the plug together.