Ready to stretch your emerging season: get an early get began in spring or keep the season shifting into autumn? Lettuce is your variety.
Lettuce does now not like warmth days and nights, so the cool time of the 12 months is the lettuce season. You are able to extend your emerging season dramatically with a lettuce box–that’s a cold frame dedicated to lettuce emerging. A lettuce box will offer protection to the earliest and latest plantings, and with a light colour subject material duvet, use the lettuce box for summer season harvests as well.
If frost is not throughout the forecast over the next 40 to 60 days tuck lettuce into flower-borders. Another way, in early spring and autumn, use the lettuce box or have the ability to provide lettuce some in one day protection when the frost comes. Lettuce leaves stung by means of frost will also be clipped away and you are able to keep on emerging new leaves from the center.
Lettuce Planting Calendar
Lettuce is a cool-weather crop that requires 40 to 50 days to reach harvest. Lettuce will send up a stalk and bolt or transfer to seed in temperatures greater than 80ºF (27ºC). Bolted lettuce is inedible.
Spring vegetation. Sow lettuce seed directly throughout the garden 4 to 6 weeks previous to the typical last frost date in spring. If your emerging season is short or scorching local weather arrives in brief, sow seed indoors in late wintry climate 10 weeks previous to the typical last frost date and transplant seedlings to the garden early so that they mature previous to the weather gets scorching. Small seedlings will also be protected by means of cloches until after the last frost.
Autumn and wintry climate vegetation. Sow lettuce in late summer season for harvest from autumn to early wintry climate. Protect last autumn and wintry climate vegetation with cloches or plastic tunnels if necessary. Some types will over-winter underneath cloches or in cold frames. In subtle wintry climate spaces, sow lettuce in autumn for harvest in wintry climate.
Succession emerging. Sow lettuce every 2 weeks until early summer season to verify an ongoing supply.
Planting Lettuce
Place. Lettuce grows highest conceivable in whole sun alternatively prefers gentle colour in spaces with scorching summers.
Soil. Lettuce prefers rich, unfastened, well-drained soil that does not dry out. Add a large number of garden compost to planting beds previous to sowing. Add a handful of blood, fish, and bone meal to each sq. yard/meter previous to sowing. Lettuce prefers a soil pH of about 6.5.
Area. Sow lettuce seed ½ inch deep. Thin leaf lettuce seedlings from 6 to 8 inches (15-20cm) apart when they are large enough to deal with. Thin head lettuce seedlings to 12 inches (30cm) apart. Area rows from 10 to 16 inches (25-40cm) apart. Lettuce that is crowded would in all probability bolt. Thinned seedlings will also be transplanted to another part of the garden or used in salads.
Container emerging. Lettuce grows well in bins and will also be grown indoors in wintry climate. A single head lettuce will also be grown in a 6-inch (15cm) pot. Area lettuce 10 inches (25cm) apart in higher bins. Lettuce grown in bins must be moved to a cool place when the weather warms.
Taking good care of Lettuce
Water. Lettuce prefers rainy alternatively now not wet soil. Lettuce is shallow-rooted; the soil must now not be allowed to dry out. Keep head lettuce well watered when the heads are forming. Use a light mulch of straw or hay spherical lettuce to stick the soil rainy and to stick muddy water from splashing onto leaves.
Feed. Add a large number of garden compost to lettuce planting beds previous to sowing seeds. Side dress lettuce every 2 weeks with compost tea right through the emerging season. Add additional garden compost to the garden previous to planting a 2d or third crop right through the emerging season.
Made up our minds on Lettuce Types to Expand
There are 3 elementary types of lettuce: head lettuce, loose-leaf lettuce, and stem lettuce. Head lettuce bureaucracy a good head and could also be known as iceberg or crisphead lettuce. Loose-leaf lettuce has a head of unfastened, open leaves. Stem lettuce bureaucracy thick stems and smaller leaves.
- Head lettuce types include Great Lakes (90 days); butterhead types include Summer season Bibb (62 days) and Buttercrunch (75 days).
- Leaf lettuce types include Black-seeded Simpson (45 days); Ruby (45 days); Pink Sails (45 days). A cos lettuce or romaine lettuce variety is Parris Island Cos (73 days).
- Stem lettuce types include Celtuce (80 days).
