The way I plant lends it self to the way I pick lettuce. I use about a two gallons of compost. I then add a packet of seed into the compost in a five gallon bucket and thoroughly shake the compost and seed for even distribution. I then distribute the compost/seed mixture evenly over the about a six square foot area. When the seed starts germinating, some seeds seem stronger than others. They grow at a faster rate. The compost/seed blanket eventually looks like a blanket of small lettuce plants. I start harvesting the entire plants when it appears two or three plants will make a salad for two people when you throw enough other stuff into it from the garden. By harvesting this way, it makes room for the still small plants to grow and I have a continuous supply of lettuce. I also grow my lettuce and carrots underneath my tent shaped cucumber/squash trellis. With lettuce shaded by the cucumber vines and sqush plants, it delays bolting giving me more time to consume the lettuce. Just my way of doing things. Ted

gardener_sandy I've found that crisp lettuce depends almost entirely on the weather. When the weather is cool and rainy, everything else may go to pot, but lettuce thrives! I don't think it's leaf lettuces that are the problem. One of the crispest crunchiest lettuces I grow is Green Ice, a pale green long-leaf crinkled edge leaf-lettuce that's just as crisp as icebergs you get in the store. And yes, the Romaines, particularly the Batavians, are also very crunchy. Of those, I grow Merlot and Jericho in the spring. They're supposed to last pretty well in hot weather but we always eat them up before that happens! I'll grow more lettuce after the weather cools off -- with all the tomatoes and cukes and zucchinis we have, we don't crave salads as much as when they aren't available. Maybe the cobb lettuces that have thicker more buttery leaves are not as crisp, though they're more crisp than leaf-lettuce bought at the market. Still, I think the weather has everything to do with how crisp lettuce is when mature.

I doubt very very much that you need to worry about re-potting for quite some time. It takes some time for new cuttings to fill a soil volume with a brand new root system, especially at this time of year. I'd think that much soil would be plenty for quite a while. I haven't grown Heartleaf philodendron in a long time, but I do not recall it having an especially vigorous root system. Later on in the growing season, should you feel like you just have to check on those roots (I don't blame you), you can slide the root ball out of the container then. Disruptions like that (especially at that time of year, and after the roots are well established) are not a problem. Just don't be too anxious to move up to a larger pot....too much stagnant potting soil creates serious problems for the plants.

My mom always used the leftover tea from the night before to water her houseplants and keep them going strong, but I'm guessing she'd have drunk all the tea but 1/2 teaspoon and then added LOTS of water. I thought I would give this a try once, and forgot about my left over tea in the pot for 4 or five days...when I remembered and looked in....yuck...mold had started to grow. I think your tea leaves would do better in the compost pile outside, or maybe collected and worked into the soil around your plants outside. The indoor plants probably don't have the micro organisms required to break the tea leaves down into something they could use, they'd be better off with storebought fertilizer, I believe.