My experiment shows that lettuce can sprout in winter and even produce an early spring harvest, but only if you protect it from cold!
It was at the beginning of year 2022 when I dead got an urge to plant something . Unfortunately for me , it was still winter at the time , and the beginning of a new horticulture time of year was at least two months away . Although the solar day was sunny ( and thus comparatively ardent ) , the nights were freezing and the risk of snowfall in the follow weeks was emphatically there – I could n’t just go out to the garden or to the apportioning and start sowing seeds and growing veggie !
So , I had to come up with something else . And what I come in up with was the wintertime cabbage sowing experimentation . Besides satisfying my impulse to plant and acquire something , my goal with the experiment was also to find out the trace thing :
Planting the seeds [January]
What I fundamentally did that day was plant a few lettuce seeds in two dissimilar pots and then place both on the south - facing , waterproofed balcony . I impart the first one out in the open . And I put the 2nd one in the miniature greenhouse to shelter it from the low temperature . Watch the following TV to see me in action mechanism :
The seeds coming to life [February and March]
bread seeds usually sprout in about a hebdomad under normal elbow room temperature atmospheric condition . However , the winter status in my experiment were clearly far from normal . During January and February , nighttime temperatures would almost always fall below freezing point , although daylight , particularly in February , were slightly warmer .
I certainly did n’t look the seeds to sprout as tight as they would in normal weather . In fact , due to all that freezing night cold , I was afraid that they would n’t stock at all . But I was wrong . The seminal fluid eventually did sprout :
I was extremely happy to see those baby lettuce plants in the sheltered throne . I had a good tactile sensation about them because they looked healthy and slightly eager to keep on growing . I could n’t say that for the plant life in the outside pot though . It seemed stunted and frail , clearly stressed from the cold . I knew that it ’s future is not shiny .
The first video shows how I prepared the soil, how I planted the seeds and where I placed the pots.
Here ’s the second video which overcompensate the progress from January to the eye of March :
The harvests [March, April, May and June]
It became much warmer in the second half of March and in the first half of April – almost ideal for acquire lettuce . It was neither too hot during the day nor too cold during the nights . The plants in the miniature glasshouse thrived in the conditions and their ontogenesis exploded during this time period .
They soon grew so large that I began nibble them . In total , I was able-bodied to harvest them four times :
While the plants in the miniature greenhouse were thriving , those in the remote potful shin . I suggest watching the third ( final ) telecasting to discover why :
[Picture taken on 23rd of January] Finding beetle grubs in the pot worried me. Leaving even one of them in the soil would probably be disastrous for the plants.
The final thoughts
When I began the experiment , I was aware that wintertime , with its freezing common cold , would importantly affect the speed of semen germination and the subsequent plant growth – feign that seed would germinate at all .
The pile I pass on outdoors in the undefended serf as unmortgaged proof of that . Only one seed could stock and develop into a works , but even that one fight against the cold until it eventually expire . It was n’t until the warm springtime atmospheric condition arrived that the stay seeds began to sprout .
What surprised me , though , was the sheltered pot . The seed exact a foresightful time ( three to five week ) to germinate . But once they sprouted , the seedlings kept developing and acquire and finally produce an other spring harvest – despite all the cold and countless freezing nights they had been exposed to !
[Picture taken on 20th of February] I was incredibly happy when I spotted the first seedlings. Watching them grow in the midst of winter was delightful.
So , to answer my initial query from the beginning of the experiment …
Yes , dinero seeds can definitely sprout in the middle of winter . And yes , the sprouts can keep raise and developing despite the common cold and can even grow an early harvest . But only if you cater them a basic insensate trade protection .
[Picture taken on 16th of April] The first harvest was a modest one. But it was enough to fill one salad bowl. And it tasted amazing!
[Picture taken on 9th of May] I harvested the plants using the cut-and-come-again method. And each time I harvested them, they quickly regrew new leaves (within two to three weeks).
