Since Lettuce is considered a cool weather crop - can it be started from seed now or is it too late already?
Anita
Lettuce from seed
How long until your average first freeze date?
Lettuce will germinate in soil as cool as 40 degrees, will not germinate when soil temps exceed 80 degrees, and I've had them overwinter after enduring 15 degree weather! Optimum temp. for growing lettuce is 60 - 70 degrees. Hope this helps you!
Anita - I grow loose leaf lettuce year round on my window sills. With enough sunlight and the chill from the wondows, it really does great. I also do pak choi and swiss chard. This year I will try some Tom Thumb Peas, as well. I've heard they will do great - and I love the thought of munching on them as the snow flies!
You can plant some lettuce. It will germinate and you can put a row cover over it so it will be somewhat protected. The seed package will tell you how long the variety takes to mature, so if you can buy it that many days between now and heavy frost, you will do great. If it freezes hard soon, well, what have you wasted? A small quantity of lettuce seed. I too have had lettuce make it through the winter here in zone 5a, but mostly it doesn't. One year my row cover got a snow on it and it froze to the ground and I couldn't get it unstuck until spring when the lettuce was done for.
Great - thanks. I'll give a try.
Can you fashion a modest cold frame? I just planted lettuce, chard, arugula, radicchio and radishes in my coldframe and greenhouse. In northern Vermont, it's great to have this stuff til November or so. I also let some go to see and leave them in the cold frame so that I start to have fresh salad greens again by early-mid april. A cold frame is fairly simple and can often be made out of stuff you already have lying around.
Good idea - that will be my project for this weekend with my nieces.