Growing Lettuce Indoors During Winter

Growing Lettuce Indoors During Winter 

Hey all! I do not know about you but in our house we go through tons of lettuce every week and buying 8-10 heads a week at the grocery store is getting tiresome and costly! I decided to start growing my own indoors under grow lights as I await my greenhouse shipment!  I will take you through my planting I did on 01/26/21.

Prepping Containers

You may laugh but I planted my lettuce in quick bread tin containers.  I picked these containers up at the dollar store and cost 1 dollar for a pack of 3!  To begin the lettuce planting I punched holes in the bottom of the containers using a nail.  If you are planting in any containers without holes I recommend grabbing a nail or sharp object to make some drainage holes in the bottom to prevent root rot.

Soil Combination

I first filled the containers about 3/4 of the way with potting mix. I moistened the soil here mixing water so  
it was the consistency of brownie mix.  It is always a good idea to moisten the soil prior to adding seeds as too much water could drown the seeds or wash them off the top of the container.  When growing lettuce you want to ensure there is plenty of nitrogen in the soil.  I added about 3 tablespoons blood meal in my soil mixture to ensure there is plenty of nitrogen for leaf production.  I also added about 3 tablespoons worm castings to my mixture as they are full of nutrients and minerals that the plants love.  Lastly, I added about 1/4 of a tablespoon of slow release fertilizer pellets as well to provide nutrients throughout the life of the lettuce plants. In the photo you can see the blood meal and worm castings in black before I mixed it around and added more potting mix on top.



Seeds

I planted 3 containers with White Paris seed and 2 containers with Giant Caesar seed.  I spread the seeds on top of the soil as lettuce needs lights to germinate.  I roughly spread the seeds 1-2 inches apart as they can be thinned out later.  Once spreading the seeds I lightly pressed down on them and then used a spray bottle to moisten the soil and seeds.  


Grow Lights

I then placed my containers under my grow lights with a 2 inch clearance.  I also then placed plastic over the containers to help keep the soil moist.  Will keep everyone updated!



02/16/21: 3 weeks later

Lettuce is doing phenomenal! It is popping up everywhere and I had also sprinkled some seeds in 2 weeks ago (a week after the original planting).  Very impressed with the germination rate and will be thinning them down soon but so far so good! I sprinkled perlite on the soil surface to keep fungus gnats at bay (don’t worry that is not mold!).  I have been misting the seedlings everyday but changed to bottom watering yesterday and will be doing that from now on.  

02/26/21: 4.5 weeks later

Lettuce is looking beautiful! Thinned them out a little bit, still growing high intensity at the moment debating if I will pot them up in individual pots to get large heads or continue high intensity with cut and come again and smaller heads.  All and all they are growing nice using bottom watering and blood meal additions!


  

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