Lettuce

Interests Gardening
#41

My gf took most of this in her salad for lunch she said it was the best lettuce ever. So the indoor chemical nutrient stuff tastes better than the outdoor organic apparently. Indoors there are no bugs, harsh sun, wind, mud splashing up on the plants when it rains hard etc.

So my plan for this winter is to grow 12 of these 1 gallon containers with 3-4 lettuce plants in each of them. under 2 dual bulb fluorescent shop lights. Will be a lot cheaper than buying it at the store, better quality and handier.

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#42

By the time the industrial lettuce gets to my area it is usually starting to rot, it doesn’t look safe to eat and I get tired of sorting out the rotted stuff.

What type of shop lights do you use?

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#43

Just a regular old dual tube 4ft shop light, I like the ones with the pull string so you can turn them off if you need to without unplugging them.

Also no overpriced “gro-bulbs” which are bullshit… just regular cheap fluorescent tubes.

I forget what they call the bulbs nowdays, daylight, etc. but I think one blue fluorescent tube around 6400k and one red one around 2600k works best creating a fuller spectrum. Maybe if you have two fixtures 3 blue tubes and one red one.

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#44

So one Warm White and one Daylight, I got the cheapest ones, in a two pack.

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#45

This other lettuce I have in just vermiculite looked like it started to take off yesterday after I upped the nutrients to around 500ppm the other day. Bad pic…

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#46

Maybe there is a market for fresh greens for supermarkets in the winter months.

#47

If you could compete with their california wholesalers then probably. it would take a big facility, a lot of lights and a lot of electric to get something like that going. A large heated greenhouse would probably be more feasible than growing it under lights.

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#48

Took these yesterday, it has grown more since. This tray has 6 plants in just vermiculite, I think 8 per tray might be optimum… feeding it about 500ppm of nutrients, 100ppm of which is calcium/magnesium. Setup a fluorescent shop light for it the other day. Looking a little greener in this pic than it does to the bare eye. I’ll probably lighten up on the nutrient solution a little after I harvest it.

I’m thinking I could fit 8 trays under 2 - 4ft shop lights. Going to start another tray of starts for indoors.

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#49

To me the indoor lettuce is more rubbery, I’ve seen the same thing with outdoor lettuce grown in shadier areas.

Not very good pics but this shit has really grown, into the light, started chopping on it last night… they’re like full sized heads now…

small container of cilantro in front of it… .

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Another tray of starts, not sure what I’m going to do with them…

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A couple pak/bok choi growing in a small container… not even really getting much light.

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#50

Pretty amazing. I don’t know about the rubbery.

Pic looks cool with the light passing through the leaves. It looks kind of Alice In Wonderland like.

#51

I"ve been neglecting this, letting it get too dry at times etc. the red lettuce bolted… stuff got a little nute burnt

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Here’s my tray of starts… 72 cell tray lol, maybe doing like 36 per tray and harvesting baby lettuce would be good.

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#52

I think the green Muir lettuce might be some of the most bolt resistant ever and I’ve read that even after it bolts it still tastes good.

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