Lettuce seeds. Is this cheating?
Dave Green
3 years ago
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Does lettuce re-seed?????
Comments (13)Couple of years ago, we had a lovely watermelon vine appear in a flowerbed by the back of the garage. The kids evidently while outside eating watermelon had a spitting contest. That vine produced the sweetest watermelons we've ever grown, guess they liked the rotted manure, compost, and potting soil that has been building up over the years in that flower bed. The neighbors thought it was a hoot....See MoreGuide To Help Others Germinate Lettuce Seeds Successfully
Comments (40)Enjoyed the links posted here. Here's my own 2 cents on this. I do all the seeding for a CSA (about 70 boxes per week), sow about 300 lettuce seeds a week for 7 months straight. The first and second year made many mistakes and got poor germination. Putting lettuce trays on heat mats did reduce greatly the germination rate. Putting the trays in a unheated hoop house also didn't work, it got too hot during the day. Now we just leave them outside. In spring gets down to 45F at night, maybe 55F during day. We use automatic overhead sprinklers, so the trays get over watered every day. Our seedling table must provide water for all the seedlings so must water enough for the largest plants. To prevent damping off, use a 1:1 perlite:peat mix (Black Gold seedling mix) with some sifted compost included 4:1 mix:compost. The overall mix is light and airy. A coir based mix didn't work, stayed too wet. Use only solid fertilizers, liquid ones get washed away with the overwatering. For the mix, I add in crabshell meal (Eliot Coleman recommendation), greensand, and soft phosphate. When I added in bloodmeal or fish meal to the mix I got damping off. To much available nitrogen. When the seedlings are about an inch tall, I sprinkle a mixture of bloodmeal and sifted compost over them. This gives them the needed nitrogen and once an inch high, I've never had any damping off. To save time I never tap the seeds into the mix. After filling the tray with mix, just drop/bang the tray against the table 4 times to get the mix to settle to a good firmness. Put the seeds on top and add a layer of fine vermiculite and overhead water. The fine vermiculite layer noticeably increased our germination rate on all seeds. Keeps the top moist and more importantly protects an emerged seedling from fungus. The vermiculite is sterile....See Morei need lettuce seeds all kinds for any azorean tree seeds
Comments (2)I have regular lettuce and red lettuce for a trade if you are interested....See MoreToo late to sow lettuce seeds in zone 6?
Comments (5)We have had a lot of heat here in Washington DC, so I have been sowing under my tomatoes and squash. That gives them some sun protection, a nursery of sorts. The summer veggies will be spent in a month when the salad crops are reaching for all the sun they can get....See MoreDave Green
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