With that in mind, I've started a small lettuce plot.
(Picture courtesty of Terrior Seeds, Heirloom Lettuce Seeds http://store.underwoodgardens.com/Lettuce/products/20/0/4)
The picture above is from Terrior Seeds and is a Romaine blend of Cimarron, Freckles, Jericho and Paris White Cos. According the Terrior, the seeds are supposed to grow to a head of lettuce in 50-85 days.
At first, I wanted to grow all my lettuce from seed, just like the picture above. It's supposed to be easy. Plant the seed, it grows - right?!? Well, after much effort and weeks of waiting, watering, misting, hoping, I managed to grow 4 - count them 4 - romaine lettuce to the size that they could be transplanted. They stand about 3 inches tall. They look impressive (to me at least!), but far from the size of a head of lettuce that you see in the grocery stores. Frustrated at the wait and the loss of about 75% of the little ones I planted, I found some Romaine 6-packs from Lowes. These guys did better - I got about 50% of them to grow to full size. The rest wilted and fell over at the base. Not sure what happened exactly. I think maybe I over watered. One place to get answers is San Diego Master Gardeners http://www.mastergardenerssandiego.org/. You can also call the Master Gardener's hotline at (858) 694-2860. They are staffed from M-F, 9am - 3pm. The help is free! I've just called and left a message for some help on my lettuce, as it's after hours and they are closed and say they'll call back - hope they do!
In the end, I bought more transplant size lettuce from the garden center and these did better. I now have enough growing to collect a bowl of lettuce about once a week. Still, my goal is to grow all my lettuce, so I kept looking...and found a site online that talks about Hydroponic lettuce. Neat! http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs184 At this site is a plan to build a large passive hydroponic lettuce garden. It might look small in the picture, but this is 4 feet x 8 feet and grows around 32 lettuces! Yay - one a day for a month, perfect!
This site from the University of Florida extension office also has a handy video that walks you through the building, step-by-step...http://vfd.ifas.ufl.edu/suwanneevalley/hydroponicgreenhouse/building_a_floating_hydroponic_garden.shtml . It's pretty amazing...like 'This Old House' but for the garden. I will give an update once I've got my hydroponic lettuce garden going!
