0tterbot wrote
Rod Speed wrote

if you plant seed direct (whether in the garden or a pot) you will have much more success too,

I didnt, I appeared to let them dry out too much.

right, regardless of where you plant them, you need to keep the seed
nicely moist until they've germinated & grown a little, naturally g

what i do with most seeds lately, is that after planting them &
whatnot, put some straw around (higher than the seed bed but not over the seeds, obviously) & lay an aluminium fly
screen over the top.
this helps keep the wind off, & provides a little shade as well. ime,

What's wrong with just a sheet of plastic to stop the soil drying out ?

Thats what worked fine with the seedling trays, I just
put them in a plastic bag and they germinated fine.

they just do much better from the protection. these i can water a bit less too. although with lettuce you still
probably want to check them 2x daily to be sure the soil is moist.

Thats one advantage with a sheet of plastic, easier to check that visually.

having said that, self-seeded lettuce thrives on all manner of
ignoring it completely, so there's that. the benefit of seed is that
only the good ones prosper. with transplants, you might just be
coddling along a dud that's never going to be a really sturdy plant.
a dud grown from seed, you just thin it out & keep only the big
boisterous ones to reach maturity.

OK, I'll collect the seeds off half the ones that
have gone to seed and let the rest self seed.

Only one batch germinated and needless to say the bloody birds got the lot in one meal.

Got bird nets now, so that wont happen again.

But the net says that they wont germinate over 30C. Not clear what that means,
whether its any time of the day over 30C or if the minimum temp is over 30C.

with lettuce in particular?

That was lettuce in general, even the ones that dont bolt in hot weather.

probably a maximum (day) average.

Yeah, I assume so too. Just wondering if anyone knew for sure.

i'd say it just means germination is very poor in hot weather.

I've since realised that I might as well just try it with seed so cheap.

if it goes over 30 for an hour it doesn't mean none of the seeds will ever germinate!! but you'd certainly want to
germinate them when it's a little cooler, or in a cooler place. also, a 35 degree day is not
necessarily unpleasant for a plant which is shaded, so there's that.

True.

also worth remembering most veg plants grow best (overall) in the
15-25 degree range, iirc, depending on the type of plant, because
it's just the way it is & they've been bred (e.g. in europe) to be
that way. local cultivars therefore have local advantage.

Yeah, I'm just talking about what to grow thru the hot summers,
obviously the problem will go away in april etc when I'm sure the
mignonettes and cos will be fine, because they were in spring.

(the cultivar australian yellow leaf, which i don't think is particularly tasty alhtough it's not bad, is definitely
better for hot weather, i found. just as an example).

OK, I'll try some of those too.

cooler areas, and often grown in shadehouses (or similar). but
they're not really a summer crop. other greens like mizuna are a
better bet.

Can you use that on sandwitches ?

of course. and it grows all year round, it's extremely easy (unlike
lettuce) and prolific. nasturtium is another good one for summer (if
you like peppery leaves).

Yes I do, I'll try some of those too.

Yeah, mate of mine had some very decent ones but he's so slack that
he doesnt even know what variety they were. He did give me some,
and gave me some tomatoes at the same time, so it most likely would
have been late summer, but I didnt think to record when it was.

if they were iceberg-like,

No they werent, they were leafy lettuces, not crispheads.
Quite vertical, but not much like my cos.

it would have been "great lakes". iceberg is a commercial cultivar, i don't believe you can buy the seed freely (?).

I've got some, got them from Bunnings, forget the
manufacturer, cant put my hand on the packet right now.

great lakes is the non-commercial version.

He let them all go to seed and collected the seed, and tried to
plant the seeds this spring, but appears to have not kept them
we enough and didnt get any germination at all. Must ask him
if he has any seeds left, think he planted the lot. I could certainly
go to some trouble to germinate them like in the fridge etc if there
are some left.

if it was a hybrid, the seed may have been infertile, OR it could
have been a problem of another kind. it's not worth saving hybrid
seed though - at best it's not true to type (although you could get
lucky & have plants which are better than type although taht is
unlikely) but they tend to have fertility problems anyway. you want
open-pollinated seed.

bolt too young, you've had soemthing from them.

So what about that 30C germination question ?

well, where i live it's not a hot climate. we get bursts of extreme
heat that last a week or so, but over summer there is plenty of time
where its well under 30 for things to germinate. our big problem this
summer has been dryness, rather than heat, & also the completely
erratic nature of the temperatures here can be a real problem.

you have to appreciate your own local weather and climate, & try to
work around that because you can't alter it. with experimenting,
you'll find out what types of things work well at your place & which
things just don't ever seem successful, and also which things you can
coax into success by doing things a little differently or at a
different time of year.

Yeah, I'll try it temperature wise, its unlikely that they mean
that any temp over 30C for any time is the problem.

i haven't worked out yet whether seasol/poo stew is a huge help to
lettuce or not, but it does seem to be anecdotally.

Havent tried that yet. Just used pelletised veg starter fertiliser
and when they grew fine, didnt bother with anything else.

blood & bone might be better. i use it a lot as my soil's pretty terrible.

Mine is very decent.

manufactured fertilisers do nothing for the soil as they
are water soluble (so you don't get to keep it - any not taken by the
plant immediately leaches away & that's a problem) and are expensive.
good luck!

i still struggle with lettuce as i said, but it's getting much better
& is lots of fun when you really crack how to do something that
hasn't worked out in the past!

Yeah, thats the main reason I am doing it, the cost of the commercial
stuff isnt the reason, its just more convenient to grab some leaves
as required. I always eat the end off a freshly baked loaf of bread
with salami and relish and lettuce in an open sandwitch and I do
a fresh loaf every 4 days literally.

we all have to keep learning all the time with this. plants like silverbeet that are hopelessly easy are excellent
too - but they don't teach us anything like lettuce & your
more contrary vegetables do. :-) kylie

True.