Plant Your Salad Greens Early: Tips for Growing Lettuce and Microgreens
It’s hard to beat the taste of a crisp green salad made with ingredients fresh from the garden.
Easy to grow, lettuce and mixed greens ask little of the gardener, but deliver delicious flavors and nutrients for our enjoyment and good health.
Known as cool-weather crops, they thrive in the warm days and cool evenings of spring, and in the late summer/early autumn season as well.
A few tips will help you to extend the growing time of these emerald treasures. There are even ways to overwinter some of these leafy annuals for a super-early feast next year!
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Plant lettuces with companion marigolds, the super flower of pest deterrents.
We’ll cover when to sow, soil preparation, mixed varieties, companion plants and pests, how to extend the season, growing in containers, seedlings, and how to overwinter.
So, let’s have a look at the best ways to grow salad greens for a steady, bountiful crop.
When to Sow
To achieve the best germination rate from seeds, the optimal soil temperatures for most lettuce varieties and salad greens are between 50 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Below 50 degrees, germination will be spotty, and above 80 degrees, the seeds go dormant.
Once the seeds have germinated and sprouted, the ideal air temperature for the best growth and flavor is in the 60s, with an upper range to the mid-70s.
When the temps get higher than 77°F, flavors become bitter as the plant prepares to set seeds.
For spring planting, seeds can be sown directly in the ground approximately four weeks before the last frost.
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