Box of lettuce
Don’t have much space but love really fresh salad…
here’s one of our boxes of lettuce.
Very simple. We got a banana box from a local grocer (actually, we’ve gotten many banana boxes). Typically it comes with a plastic liner bag with aeration holes. We double the box by putting the bottom half into the top half. Fill about 75% with good soil and you’re ready to go.
In this box I grew a couple varieties of leaf lettuce from seed – Red Sails and Rouge D’hiver from seed. Lettuce seeds shouldn’t be planted deep… only 1/8 inch.
Here’s how I planted this box:
– keep a little dry soil aside.
– water the soil in the box completely through.
– pinch some seeds between your index finger and thumb and sprinkle them into the box.
– then take the dry soil held aside and sprinkle it over the seeds.
Keep well moistened until they sprout, then back off the water some. Germination is generally 1-2 weeks.
You’ll notice this is densely planted. As it grows, thin by harvesting the leaves rather than entire plants. You can also space them out more if you have more room.
Leaf lettuce matures more quickly – around 45 days. Head lettuce – 60-75 days.
Lettuce prefers the cooler and moister weather of spring and fall. During the summer we plant it in shady areas. For now we’ve staggered out 4 boxes of lettuce to keep up eating very frash salad until at least the end of the year.
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