I’d like to grow lettuce like his mom did, too. So now I have the brawn I needed to do the heavy work. I’m sooo excited!<<<
I am so glad for you, that is wonderful and you will be out there watching every fraction of an inch of growth.
I love it when the first seed breaks through the soil, LOL, even if it does turn out to be a weed.
There is nothing more dream producing, than setting by the wood stove, poking holes in the bottom of the coffee cups and filling with planter mix and seeds......
I always gather up all the styrofoam coffee cups to use for seeds and cuttings and they are cheaper than flower pots, use a pencil and poke 3 or 4 holes in the bottom, not too big, but enough that they will drain well.
As a general habit, I use them once for seeds, but will save them for plants and cuttings that I am rooting.
I try to be organic, but the budget does not go to full organic, so I cut corners and make do.
Walmart did sell a bag of potting mix called Pro-Mix, under their own Walmart label, it is the best seed growing medium that I have ever used.
Get it moist, add 3 or 4 seeds, cover as required and press down, then I water from the bottom, till the moist soil is showing on top.
Top watering kills more seedlings than any thing else.
I put clear plastic over the top, and take it off when I see beads of moisture forming on it, then when dry and at night put it back on.
I plant as many oriental greens and leaf lettuce as I can, so I can pinch off the outer leaves and still have more growing, I never cut or pull the entire plant, unless I want the space or they are just too crowded.
I have never managed to grow a “round head of lettuce”.
Get a bag of onion sets, plant in pots and you will have the tops for ‘green onions’, but if you keep harvesting the tops, the bulb will not grow as large, so don’t be surprised.
An old dish pan, with holes, a baby’s bath tub and LOL, anything else that does not have something growing in it is fair game.........Lettuce and greens do well in the bath tub and dish pans, tomatoes and peppers, will do well in 2 gallon pots, for one plant, larger if possible.
I just shake the tomato plant, grab the main stem and gently shake it every day, that will polanize the flowers, as they are self fertile, same with the peppers, I am not positive they are self fertile, but I shook them and got peppers, in doors.