Lettuce Update Week 3

The lettuce hasn't grown as much this week as I would have expected.  Could be it's colder than it usually is outside in the spring, even though 50-55 isn't too cold for them.  They are also pretty crowded, and as soon as I took this picture I had my first microgreens, and thinned the plants. I'm afraid I saw a suspicious little critter that looked like a fruit fly around the lettuce, and I probably have fungus gnats.

The larva of Fungus gnats damage the roots and indoor plants grow slower because of it.  Outside the fluctuations in soil moisture keep them from being a problem, even though they're around.  Since I planted my lettuce in potting soil that's been outside for the summer it won't be a surprise if I have them, and I'd better start dealing with them, since I'll start all my seeds in this potting soil.  Even though these are young plants, I'll let the soil dry out as much as possible before I water the lettuce again.  I've only watered it once since I planted them, since the potting soil had plenty of moisture in such a deep pot for so little plant material.  I'll also put a yellow sticky trap nearby and see if I catch any.  This is a card covered with a sticky substance, and a great many insect pests are attracted to the color.  It's mostly a monitoring device; it will let me know how many I have. But if the numbers are small and it kills the adults then I won't have to worry about them laying eggs, either, and the yellow sticky trap will also serve as a control.

Posted below is last week's picture, so you can see the growth in a week:

Lettuce Update Week 2

The lettuce is coming along.  This is 15 days since I planted it.  The seedlings are still quite small, and leggy because I've forgotten to turn the lights on some days (sigh) so they've reached for the dim light from the window which is quite a ways away from their table.  Poor little things.  I may harvest them as micro greens, in which case I won't thin them. A few are already starting to show some red tinge.

THE LETTUCE SPROUTED

But just barely.  I'm posting a picture now because the Weekend Cook and Tell challenge at Serious Eats ends today, and I said that I was going to start lettuce to chase the winter veggie blues.  I'd hoped they would be up by Monday, showing their two little cotyledons by today, but perhaps the 3 year old seed is pushing its limit.  Sometimes as seed gets older it is technically viable, but may germinate more slowly and give plants that aren't as vigorous.

What you see is the little upside down u of the emerging stem, with the seed coat still partly submerged in the soil (looks like they could have been buried a little deeper).  The soil will catch and hold the seed coat, allowing the green first leaves (cotyledons) to unfurl.  Pictures of that when it happens.

The top picture shows how close I actually have the pot to the underside of the light (about 2 inches).  The black panel is the exterior of the fixture's hood. The cool flourescents give some heat, so it's just as well the pot is in a cool room. There is greater intensity to the bulb toward the center, so that's where I have my little lettuce seedlings.

I'll show weekly pictures of this lettuce as it develops.

PLANTING LETTUCE SEEDS

I said a couple of posts ago that I'd probably wait until January 1st to start my winter lettuce seeds, but over at Serious Eats the weekend Cook and Tell challenge is to tell "how you are coping with your Winter Vegetable Blues."

I'm hoping to cope by growing lettuce for the next couple of months until I need the lights for tomatoes and peppers. So I started some seeds this evening.  Planted rather liberally in a 4 inch nursery pot, in potting soil.  Just barely covered and watered a little.  I'm hoping they'll be up by Monday.  I'm starting them in the kitchen because the room I would usually grow them in is about 50 degrees, and although the lettuce wouldn't mind the cold I would.  They will probably start a little faster in the kitchen.

The picture above (from the summer garden) is probably the lettuce mix (in fact, probably from the same seed packet) that I'm starting: Johnny's Allstar Gourmet Lettuce Mix. It's a 2007 seed packet, but the "usual" seed life for lettuce is 3 years.  The Territorial Seed catalog has great cultural information, and the usual seed life is one of the pieces of information they give.  Not on the website though, so you'd need to order the catalog, and that's a good thing to do.

LETTUCE PLANNING

I've been thinking about starting cutting lettuce for the winter under lights.  Will probably start Outredgeous, a favorite red romaine, and maybe just a lettuce mix.  At this point it might be January 1 before I start.  The lettuce in the picture (currently in the header) is Summertime, an iceberg that grows very well here in the North.  This is a true iceberg (crisp head), but it is so superior to what you'll find in the stores, because the wrapper leaves have color and substance.  Although it heads up, I usually pick the outer leaves like a leaf lettuce until it becomes clear that it's going to head up.  The red might be Outredgeous.  I started these sometime in March, as I recall.  The great thing about starting lettuce to transplant to the garden is that they can spend nearly half their life in a pot before they get transplanted.  And although I germinated them inside they spent most of the first few weeks outside, at least during the day.  Sometimes the back shelf in the car serves as a greenhouse during the coldest days. Even if you only have space for a few old one gallon nursery pots lettuce makes a lot of sense to grow.