How To Grow Lettuce At Home From Seeds? (STEP BY STEP)
Lettuce is The Most Beginner Friendly Vegetable, That You can Grow At Home In a Cool Season. In This Post We Will Go Through Each Step Of Growing Lettuce From Seeds In Pots, So keep Reading.
What is The Right Time To Grow Lettuce?
First of All Its Extremely Important To Know The Right time To Grow Lettuce Seeds. Lettuce Plants Likes a Cool Area To Grow, Starting Winters Could Be The Best Time To sow Their Seeds. But In cold Climate Countries, Lettuce is Grown All year Long, Because It grow Really Well At Room Temperature. So make Sure The Season Is Not Too Cold, & Not Too Hot & then Sow The Seeds of Lettuce Plants.
How To Choose Quality Seeds?
Another Important Thing For Growing Lettuce From Seeds Is The Quality of Seeds. Lettuce Seeds Are Very Tiny, But They Grow Quickly. The Best Quality Seeds are That Which Are Harvested recently. Older Seeds have Lesser germination Rate, & The Seedlings That Grow are Also Weak.
So Its Better To Buy Fresh Lettuce Seeds. Also make Sure The lettuce Variety You are sowing Is Compatible With Your Area. Better To Start From a Locally Grown, Common Variety. Some Good Quality Lettuce Seeds are Also Linked Here To Buy.
Prepare Seed Starterโฆ.
Another Thing To Grow Lettuce At Home, is to Prepare a Seeds Starter. Seeds can Grow In an Ordinary Soil Media, But To Ensure 100% germination, Its Better to use a Loose, Soft & Very Well Draining Soil Media. Once The Plants are big enough, You can Shift Them In an Ordinary Soil mix.
For Now, I am using A Homemade Seeds Starter, Its a Cheap Recipe, You can Follow It From This Guide. For The Pot, Choose any 5 to 6 Inches pot, With Drainage Holes.
Sow The Seeds The RIght Way!
Now lets Sow The Lettuce Seeds, These are The Seeds of Lettuce Plants, They Are Tiny, So Be Careful Sprinkle Them Over a moist Soil Media Evenly. Make Sure the Seeds Dont Overlap. Now Cover Them With a Very Thin Layer of Soil Media.
I Used Cocopeat, Its Light Weight & Helps The Seedlings To Poop Out easily. Don’t Bury Them Too Deep. Now Moisten The Soil using a Spray Bottle.
Make Sure The Soil Goes Fully Moist For The First Time, Its Important For Healthy Germination. Place This Pot in a very Well Lit Area.
After a Few days, Tiny Tiny Seedlings of Lettuce Plants Will Poop Out. At This Stage, Put Them In full day of Bright Light, But Not Direct Sunlight.
How To Transplant Lettuce Seedlings?
Within a Few More Days, The Growing Seedlings Will have a Few True Leaves, Now You Can Transplant Them In a Bigger pot. Choose Such a Wider Container, With at least 4-5″ Depth, I am using a Grow bag, Its porous, Best For Lettuce Roots. For The Soil Media, Use a Well Draining & Soft Soil mix. make Sure Its a Little Moist Before Transplant, You can Also make a Free Potting mix at Home, Guide On That Is added Here.
Now carefully Extract The Seedlings Out Of The pot. Dont Damage The Roots. & Let some soil intact With The Roots. If The Seedlings have been Watered a day Before Transplant, This Will Reduce The Chance of Death. Put The Plant into The Soil Upto The First Set of True Leaves. Gather Soil Around Its Fragile Trunk & Press a Little.
With This Way Transplant all Seedlings, With a Gap of 4-5 inches. Do This Whole Procedure At a Cool Evening.
Then Water The Soil very carefully. Don’t Through Water Over The Plant. Make Sure No Leaf Touches The Soil Surface. Place This Growbag In a Shade For Some days.
Within a Few More Days, The Plants Will Stand & Start Growing. Now You can Put Them in a Sunny area.
Keep The Soil a Little Moist all The Time. But Dont add Too Much Moisture.
Fertilize With Thisโฆ
After a Few Weeks, Your Lettuce Plants Will Look Like This, You can fertilize Them At This Stage. Use a Nutrients enrich fertilizer, Every 2 Weeks. I Used This Fertilizer at The Transplant Time, Its Made at Home using Organic Ingredients, You can Find A Guide On This Vegetable fertilizer From Here.
How To Harvest The lettuce?
With a Few Few More Days, You Will see Your Plants Growing Very fast, Its Because they are mature & Season Is Gettingh very Ideal Now. I Grew Them In The start of Winters, & Now The Nights are Cooler, Which Helps Lettuce To Grow Bigger Leaves. So The Season is Most Important. Once The leaves are 4-5 Inches, You can Harvest Them.
The Method Is Really Simple, Take a Clean Cutter, Cut Above The Crown, Crown Is The Part From Where all The Leaves Are Appearing. Leaving 1 inch of The Plant, You can Harvest The Above Part. Do This carefull. These are The Harvested organic Leaves of Lettuce, Grown at Home From Seeds.
The rest of The Plants, Will Grow New leaves That You can harvest again. But Now, Fertilize Them a Little, using The Same fertilizer. It Will Provide The Plant Nutrients, To Grow Healthy Leaves again.
So Its all About Growing lettuce from seeds, To Know How You can Grow Turnips from Seeds Step by step, Follow This Guide.