Sympathink: How to Grow Baby Oakleaf Lettuce, Gardener's World: How to Thin Salad Leaves. Since there’s no good way to preserve lettuce, most gardeners will plant a new row each week, ensuring they’ll have multiple harvests of lettuce to enjoy. tall before thinning. Lettuce seeds are small, so it can be difficult to plant them at specific intervals. In order to get the best-tasting yield, leaf lettuces should be properly thinned. Step 1. Cover very lightly with a fine starter soil. Thinning lettuce plants is simple. However, even leaf lettuce should be properly spaced in a garden. Whether you are planting tomatoes or lettuce, the seedlings always find a way to thin out and become reedy.. You can start your lettuce seeds in store-bought seed trays or make your own out of an old egg carton, box or newspaper.Fill the seed trays to within 1 ⁄ 2 inch (1.3 cm) of the top with a soilless growing medium. How to thin plants . Garden lettuce comes in two distinct varieties: head lettuce and leaf lettuce (both Lactuca sativa), which generally grow best in USDA plant hardiness zones 3 through 10, according to Sympathink. Lettuce prefers the cooler temperatures of spring and fall, but can be grown during the summer if given enough shade and water. Leaf lettuces should be direct sown whenever possible, meaning that the seeds are planted where the plants will mature. Use garden snips or a scissors to thin out crowded seedlings. When to sow Lettuce seeds. Head lettuces grow as one plant; leaf lettuces grow as individual plants, and both are easy to grow. Here's and … A good way to 'thin' especially the fine, tiny plants that are bunched together, is to use needle-nose plyers..you can grab the base of the single plant you wish to remove, and pull it gently, up and away … © Copyright 2020 Hearst Communications, Inc. Head lettuce is usually grown from seeds started indoors during warm weather for a fall garden. Nobody likes to thin seedlings. Once harvested, leaf lettuces can keep for up to two weeks in a plastic storage bag. The best approach is to plant seeds in a row, then wait until sprouts reach a few inches in height; most leaf lettuces should be thinned to about 4 to 6 inches apart, but check the information on the seed packet to confirm the desired distance. Some plants will grow faster than others and as they’re removed, others grow up to take their place. How to Know When Romaine Lettuce Is Ready to Pick? Tomato, zucchini, broccoli, kale, lettuce, and beet seedlings tend to … Decide which seedlings to thin out – Choose the strongest seedling in the bunch to keep, and then thin the rest. In about 7-10 days, the seedlings will sprout. Closely examine the plants. Leggy seedlings often happen with seeds started indoors and any type of vegetable, herb, or flower seedling can be affected. Your email address will not be published. Water when the soil is dry; the best time to … It's fussy work, and always hard to decide which ones to save and which to toss. Leaves can be directly harvested using garden or kitchen shears. It means precious hours tending the seedlings … Leaf lettuces are usually ready to harvest within six to eight weeks from planting; check the seed packet to know when to expect harvest. Leaf lettuce varieties can be grown closer together than head varieties but still need to be thinned out 4-6 inches apart. Seedlings should have at least two pairs of true leaves and be about 3 to 4 inches (7.5-9 cm.) Luckily, lettuce shouldn’t be planted too deeply. The seedlings you thin out can be washed and eaten too. Plant out Lettuce seeds in early spring once the frosts have gone. Since lettuce can’t be frozen or otherwise saved, be sure to fully enjoy the harvest once the lettuces are ready. Follow similar steps whether you are thinning romaine seedlings or another variety of lettuce. Thin by Rake (Optional) If you are growing vegetable seedlings in blocks rather than rows, you can run a flexible rake through the seedlings to thin them out. Although, each variety will vary so be sure to check its seed … Danielle Smyth is a writer and content marketer from upstate New York. Lettuce seeds are small, so it can be difficult to plant them at specific intervals. Since leaf lettuce can be harvested by the leaf, it might feel like the more seeds planted, the bigger the yield. (You can try transplanting the thinnings but why waste your time when lettuce seed is so cheap). Then cover with hand sprinkled compost or soil and tamp. Thinning. Raking will free up more space for remaining seedlings to grow and is much faster than plucking or cutting seedlings … Examine the seedlings to see which appear to be the healthiest and strongest, and thin the smaller plants around those when the soil is damp, says Gardener’s World. If the seedlings have grown close together, their roots could be intertwined, and tugging one out could disturb its neighbors. 1. Thin leaf lettuce seedlings to 4 inches apart. I started lettuce seedlings about 14 or 15 days ago. Transplant head lettuce … If growing outdoors, be sure to protect the lettuces from rabbits, squirrels and deer, who may consider your garden a buffet line. Thin seedlings… Replant seeds in areas where plant spacing is too far (if applicable). Tip #4: Starting Lettuce Seeds in a Garden. Cutting the plant back to the soil can stimulate it to produce more leaves, but the timing should follow the season (for instance, cutting the plant back in late fall may not yield additional lettuce). When I grow lettuce in a container, I just direct seed and thin to about 1 plant/square inch, then as they get bigger I cut them out and eat the young greens. Do thin … Thinning your plants gives them space to grow to larger leaves and dense hearts. The plants are ready for thinning when the second set of true leaves shows up. Lettuce grows best in sheltered areas with a few hours of direct sunlight. Learn which variety of lettuce you are planting and know it’s growing needs. Depending on the season and the plan for the lettuce, plants can also be cut back completely or pulled up entirely. The leaves are ready to be eaten when they are firm but not hard (lettuce becomes woody if harvested too late); older leaves should be harvested, even if not to eat, to stimulate the growth of new leaves. Leaf lettuce that is packed in too tightly without adequate air circulation can often taste bitter because each individual plant is competing for resources; it can also go to seed early (a process called bolting) which ruins the taste. I like to pull up the smaller seedlings that look less vigorous and leave the stronger looking plants. Wait to thin … Look over your lettuce seedlings. Sow Lettuce seeds 4 inches apart; later thin seedlings … Log in, 11 Ways to Keep Your Chickens Cool This Summer ». Aim to thin leaves … She owns her own content marketing agency, Wordsmyth Creative Content Marketing (www.wordsmythcontent.com), and she enjoys writing home and DIY articles and blogs for clients in a variety of related industries. Second, floppy seedlings have a hard time growing up to be strong plants. Cut the seedlings at soil level to thin root vegetables. Works fine for me, and with that grow light, you'd probably be able to have lettuce … If you sow seed so thickly that there is no space between seedlings and don’t plan to thin, make sure that air is not blocked around that patch of lettuce or … First, seedlings that are too tall will have problems when they are moved outdoors. Moisten the medium in preparation for sowing the seeds. Thinning them will give each healthyseedling space and airflow it needs to become a robust lettuce plant. Removed seedlings can be transplanted or eaten as delicious, tender microgreens. She holds a Master of Science in Publishing from Pace University. See the “How To Choose Which Seedlings To Thin” section above to figure out which seedlings to thin, and which ones to keep. Keep in mind that even the baby seedlings can be eaten in salads. Thin using a garden scissors to snip off … Thin seedlings as soon as the first true leaves appear and continue until the plants are 30cm (12in) apart. When you purchase seeds, the seed … I planted them in a seed starting mix in flat trays by planting 3 or 4 seeds together in one hole. Since old lettuces will eventually bolt, making them bitter, don’t be afraid to harvest an entire plant before it passes its peak. Sow Lettuce seed ¼ to ½ inch deep. Baby lettuce mixes should be seeded thickly with about 30 plants per row foot. … Two weeks after seeding a garden bed with lettuce you’ll have tons of little seedlings popping out of the ground. Romaine and butterhead lettuce seedlings require 6 to 8 inches between each plant. Use the plants that were thinned out to make a salad so they don’t have to go to waste. For indoor starts, sow a few Bibb lettuce seeds in each cell of a seed tray. When planting seed mixes (mesclun) we don’t worry too much about immediate thinning. Be sure to fertilize and mulch occasionally, and weed the garden particularly well around leaf lettuce; weeds will compete for resources with the other small plants. Evening hours are a good time to thin seedlings as the cooler temps and … Here’s how to thin vegetable seedlings: Thin seedlings in the cool of the day or an hour or so after they have been watered; the seedlings will be plump with moisture. Allow the remaining seedlings to grow to maturity without disturbance. Because they are thin and floppy, they can’t stand up as well to natural occurrences like wind and hard rain. If you have ever tried planting vegetables, you will admit that your seedlings becoming leggy is a nemesis that is difficult to avoid.. She also runs her own lifestyle blog, Sweet Frivolity (www.sweetfrivolity.com). Transplanting lettuce seedlings before they get leggy is a matter of timing; lettuce is a cool-weather plant and does best when outdoor temperatures are in the 60s and 70s. Sow lettuce seed into beds very … Lettuce is one of the easiest vegetables to grow outside, … If you have some that seem to close together, simply pull up ones that are in the way. Keep soil moist during the germination period. Prepare seed trays. It also reduces competition between the plants for resources and improves air circulation. Thin plants to correct spacing once they reach a few inches tall. Use a small pair of scissors to cut the shoots off the seedlings you aren’t keeping. 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