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Lettuce is one of the easiest crops but can also be the hardest to grow. They sprout pretty easily but you can’t let get them too hot as it will bolt/ go to seed. Once that happens, they usually become bitter.
This post is about my most recent time starting lettuce from seed by using peat pellets. I had some left from a bag of 200 that were ordered on Amazon.
I filled a small tray and added warm water. The little pucks expanded and were ready for seeds. I dumped out the extra water and made sure that there were openings in the netting for the seeds. The seeds get covered in the peat and were left alone for a week.
I put the tray in an area of the backyard that gets some sun but not all day. I was lucky that the pellets didn’t dry out. If I had put it in full, all day sun, they would’ve dried out in a day or two. If it doesn’t feel moist, just add water to the tray or container that the pellets are in. They will soak up the water and you just dump out out the extra water.
I left them alone and the seeds just exploded in growth. Once the plants got a little size to them; they were transplanted I to a large Smartpot that already had two small papaya trees and a Growoya.
I simply moved back some of the mulch, removed the netting on the pellet, made a small hole and dropped in the whole pellet. I backfilled with soil and cover it back up with mulch. As always, water when you transplant. It didn’t take much as the Growoya keeps the soil pretty moist. I just refill it once a week.
That’s it. You don’t need any fancy equipment. I may check on these lettuce every few days but I hope to be eating from here in couple of more weeks or less.
Here are the Amazon links:
1. Peat Pellets
2. 10×10 Trays
That’s all you really need, other than seeds. It only took 3 weeks from seed to transplant. We should be harvesting in another week or so.