Lettuce

[Gardening with Rabbits]

It is snowing right now. I have a box close to the house with a foot of snow in it, but the ground is not froze. My local weather report is showing 30s and 40s for highs, 30s and 20s for lows through the end of month into Feb. Of course this is a guess, I guess, but should I be planting lettuce and covering it? This almost seems like a March forecast for us here.

 

[majorcatfish]

sorry but no... you would be better off growing it over grow lights indoors...

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

sorry but no... you would be better off growing it over grow lights indoors...

That is what I thought. I will go back to my seed catalogs now and be patient.

 

[majorcatfish]

That is what I thought. I will go back to my seed catalogs now and be patient.

but would recommend that you start some indoors this spring so you can plant them once the weather is right and get a head start once planting the start's plant more. and every 2 weeks ,so you have plenty throughout the season.. you have to love fresh lettuce....

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

well, got a couple inches of snow this morning here. already shoveled the driveway & cleaned off the new car. most of our snow is wet but strangely doesn't feel all that heavy. it is in the mid 30's now & it's dripping off the roof & seems to be melting away. January is usually the season for freezing our butts off with a blizzard or two, then a slight thaw before sending us into the teens down to the negative temps again. last storm the snow was washed away from the rain.

i'm thinking of running to the feed store to see if they have the cubes of seed starter mix so i can beat the rush. at this point in time i can't be spending any more on seeds or plants since i have a car payment again. it's really a happy/sad time for me. sad: i lost a great car & have payments again. happy: i have a nice newer to me car with a lot less miles.

i'm really sad i don't want to get it dirty though!

i rearing to go with seed starting but i have to make the starting space in my laundry room again. i need to add a few more lights in there too.

 

[Nyboy]

I know just how your feeling! Love having nice new car, not happy having car payments again.Right before they got their xmas trees in Home depot marked all bags of manure, soil, compost and mulch $1. I passed it all up because I didn't want to dirty car.

 

[digitS']

My experience with greenhouse lettuce this winter is about what I expected, even though the temperatures have not been overly cold.

It is surprising that lettuce seed is happy to germinate at extremely low temperatures, according to the horticulturalists. Still, it barely grows! I should be able to harvest some lettuce in February but nothing so far.

What are those plants, four months old?!

Steve

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

@digits are there any types you seem to have better luck getting to sprout & grow better than others with colder temps? i have a lot of different types and some that the packets say they are good for cool temps but i am hesitant to get them going too soon outside. i keep the laundry room door closed so that room stays cooler than the rest of the house. now, i know my onion seedlings do fine in that room when started early & i don't give them any heat, just the light they would need. but i haven't thought much about starting lettuce in there. i am tempted to start some of the cold tolerant types.

i'd say that room stays in the 50's because of the air vent & the door being closed.

 

[digitS']

I don't show up in the garden very early with lettuce seed in recent years. Starting plants indoors, I set them out and they go from there. With the greenhouse, I get a little jump on things but I don't recall ever having trouble with any lettuce seed in the spring.

Lettuce, onion, parsnip, and spinach are listed at a minimum of 40°f soil temperature by Oregon State Extension and others. That leaves even radish with warmer temperature recommendations.

When the lettuce growth has been too slow is the couple times I've tried it as temperatures were cooling in late summer and fall. The Asian greens sped right along. The lettuce drug itself through the weeks and came to a stop, unharvested.

This is the first winter that I've transplanted lettuce into the greenhouse beds. They are tiny and were unusable in December. I don't expect growth from anything in January but I'm curious how late winter will turn out. At least, they haven't died!

Steve

 

[journey11]

It is snowing right now. I have a box close to the house with a foot of snow in it, but the ground is not froze. My local weather report is showing 30s and 40s for highs, 30s and 20s for lows through the end of month into Feb. Of course this is a guess, I guess, but should I be planting lettuce and covering it? This almost seems like a March forecast for us here.

You might want to give wintersowing a try. I started some lettuce and escarole in jugs last year to get a little jump-start on them. They won't sprout until the time is right, but it will give them a couple of weeks head-start. Here's a link with more info on the method. http://www.agardenforthehouse.com/2012/11/winter-sowing-101-6/