How to Grow Lettuce, Planting Lettuce, Growing Leaf Lettuce

How to grow lettuce from seeds or transplants when home vegetable gardening. Learn how to plant lettuce seeds indoors for transplant into the garden at planting time.

Lettuce is one of the standby crops of the early spring garden.

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After discovering how to plant lettuce, always make sure to have small crops on hand to move into the garden whenever you can.

Every variety of lettuce, including leaf and head lettuce, grows rapidly and thrives in cool weather.

Planting Lettuce in February

For many gardeners, the lettuce season begins in February so you can set out sturdy seedlings as soon as weather permits.

Begin by sowing in the hotbed, where lettuce does exceptionally well.

Whether in the greenhouse or in the hotbed, lettuce seedlings will need to be transferred to individual compartments in six packs or thinned after a couple of weeks to prevent overcrowding.

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Simple Hotbed Design for Growing Lettuce

How to Grow Lettuce in a Hotbed

In years past, a layer of fermenting horse manure would have provided this heat, now days the job is done by heating cables.

How to Grow Lettuce

Planting Lettuce in March

In March, a second leaf lettuce crop can be sown.

Put about a dozen lettuce seeds into a 4 inch pot filled with potting soil and cover them lightly with 1/8 inch of peat moss.

Bottom water, drain, and keep indoors provided with sunlight.

The seedlings will be up in a matter of a few days.

Sow a sparse, closely spaced row of leaf or head lettuce in the hotbed as well.

The lettuce plants will only be here for a short time so they do not need much room.

Begin Harvesting Lettuce in April

Harvesting Lettuce

How to Grow Lettuce All Season Long

You can harvest succulent lettuce throughout the growing season and sometimes into early December by using cold frames and cloches.

These vegetable gardening techniques can extend the growing crop a month or more beyond the first killing frost.

How to Grow Lettuce Through the Fall

Lettuce can be kept in the open garden through the fall without the protection of cloches or cold frames if the temperature drops steadily night by night, allowing the plants to harden their growth.

If freezing weather arrives overnight even the ordinarily frost-tolerant lettuce plants will be killed outright unless they are covered with leaves, straw, or overturned containers for temporary protection.

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How to Grow Lettuce to Vegetable Gardening

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