Good Morning and salutations all you wonderful #gardeners out there !!
During the long winters here in Upstate NY, I get a little antsy by March to see the green, no not "show me the money", but give me something to see grow aka GREEN. I also tend to miss the light, it kind of depresses me. So I decided to try my hand at growing lettuce from seed indoors with grow lights.
Other veggie and flower seeds were also started at the same time as my lettuce. But that's another story. I just want to share with you this outstanding indoor growing and the success I had with transitioning these babies to outdoor living.
This is how the bulk of my lettuce gets it's start, outdoors when the weather is warmer than the 38 to 40 degrees outside when I started my lettuce seedling indoors.
I found that the answer was in the thinning. I was brutal with my indoor lettuce thinning. I always have a hard time with plucking out those little green sprouts, I crave the green. But I really went hard at it until I was down to just 3 little plants. Oh boy did that work great. I was absolutely amazed how quickly the little guys grew, I kept the soil moist and the lights on from anywhere from 8-10 hours. Let me tell you also, I felt like I grew too, the light helped me feel happier.
Just like my grand-daughter Peyton on her first birthday.
As soon as I was sure, no more frost was coming and the mean temp was in the 55-60 degree mark, out went the indoor plants. There were times that I did bring them in at night if the forecast was below 55. My lettuce experiment was fun and produced for us. Check out the bouquet of farm fresh lettuce. It's tonight's salad.
Since we are such salad lovers, we grow quite a bit of different lettuces. These are my new babies...outdoors from the start. So now...here comes the painful, just kidding, thinning part once again. This I don't mind doing in the least. I am outdoors again with the sunlight on my face, nothing better after a long and cold winter.
Hope you enjoyed my lettuce experiment, if you live in a cold area like we do, don't let it get you down, just put on the lights and grow a little green indoors. It made me smile with every little sprout that popped up !
Happy growing ya'll !