[Market-farming] GROWING LETTUCE was Managing lettuce

Allan Balliett aballiett at frontiernet.net
Fri May 22 08:04:19 EDT 2009


I saw lettuce being started in  #72 speedlings years ago at Green Gulch.

They were using the real speedling racks. Because it is hot there, 
they would dump volumes of water on the trays readily and it would 
all run out the bottom, leaving the soil mix 'just right' with 
wetness.

I've been using speedlings for the past 6 years or so but when I 
bought them, Speedling had gotten out of the rail/rack business and 
couldn't recommend a source

My attempts to make reliable rails have been failures (the rails at 
Green Gulch held the trays reliably. My rails have let them fall out 
if watered too hard or fast.)

The big plus with speedlings is that the plugs come out as pyramids 
and can be placed in simple slits in the beds.

What's strange, though, is that I find that lettuce grows more slowly 
in speedlings than in plastic containers of the same soil volume. I 
don't think drainage is an issue, but I find it strange!

I water with diluted (50%) fish and seedweed once a week.



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