How to Grow Lettuce from Seed

Lettuce is possibly one of the easiest garden plants to grow.

Starting it from seed is super easy and you won’t need to begin them in your home or transplant seedlings.

Lettuce seeds can be sown directly in the garden soil in spring or fall.  It is a fast-growing plant and there just aren’t many problems or challenges associated with growing it.

“I CAN NOT GROW ANYTHING”

Many folks feel like they have failed as a gardener, like they have a black thumb, or that is just isn’t “in their blood.”

LIES

I am here to tell you that gardening is not in anyone’s blood or an inherited trait.  Gardening is a learned skill just like scratch cooking and learning to type.

If you want to grow food, you can.

There are environmental situations that greatly affect the success (or failure) of a garden.  These are typically the factors that create sub-par gardens and make us feel like we aren’t any good at it.

There are 2 keys to a successful garden:

1. Good Soil.  Soil is non-negotiable.  If you have rich soil you will probably have an amazing garden.  If you have terrible soil, it is likely your garden won’t produce much food.  Lacking soil creates unhealthy plants.  A plant attempting to grow and bear fruit poor ground is under a terrible amount of stress.  Add to the stress of bad soil, a season of drought, some slugs, and a little blight and your plants are probably doomed.  On the other hand, when plants are thriving in great soil they can fight the diseases, withstand the dry weather and even resist insect attacks.  Healthy soil is amazing.
2. Plant Choice.  The second factor which can greatly determine the success of your garden is Plant choice.  See, this when it gets interesting… even with mediocre soil, some plants can still do well.

Some crops are high-maintenance and hard to grow.  Tricky plants include: tomatoes, squash (because of the squash bugs), and sometimes cucumbers (because of the powdery mildew).

Summer gardens are notoriously a pain in the neck.  In addition to the summer varieties being a bit harder to keep happy, summer holds its own list of surprises problems that plague gardens everywhere.

1. Summer can provide extreme heat and drought
2. Summer sometimes brings aggressive amounts of rainfall
3. The heat (and humidity) is the environment where blight, mold, and funguses thrive
4. Summer is when the bugs are out in droves raising families and looking for free meals
5. And it’s HOT, which is hard on us gardeners who like air conditioning

BRING ON THE SPRING GARDEN

The mild, cooler weather of spring and fall are perfect for growing cole crops (like lettuce).

To Grow Lettuce from seed 

There are two ways to do this.  You can sprinkle your seeds in organized rows or you can sprinkle them all over the bed.  Either way works.

First, weed the bed and clear it of any rocks.

Next, make a shallow divot using the handle of a garden tool.

Sprinkle the lettuce seeds along the divot about 2 inches apart.  Do not worry if you drop a few extra seeds in the divot.  You can thin the rows later.

Gently cover the seeds with soil.  They should be about 1/2 inch deep.

Last, water.

Water is the key to ensuring the seeds germinate and become lettuce.  In spring, the rainfall seems to never stop and your lettuce seeds will probably not need much attention from you.

In fall, it will be your job to be sure the lettuce seeds don’t dry out and die.

Lettuce seeds can be planted in early spring (as soon as the ground is workable).  They can be planted for a second harvest at the end of summer (to enjoy in fall).

To harvest lettuce, remove outer leaves from the plants and leave the center intact.  The plant will continue to produce more leaves.

Lettuce is not the only cool-weather crop you can sow from seed to enjoy in spring or fall.

Here are some other cool-season plants you can sow directly in your garden:

• Kale
• Mustard Greens
• Collards
• Turnips
• Radishes
• Sugar Snap Peas

Happy Gardening!

XO,

Candi