Yes, you read it right guys. This is my third try and seeing these lettuce at this stage looks quite successful.
As an amateur in hydroponics or farming and gardening stuff, definitely experience would be the best way for your to learn and do the right thing that really matters in this kind of a hobby or even a business for someone. Planting crops and vegetables like this was so cautious and need a lot of attention.
Aside from knowing that lettuce is a green leafy water lover vegetables, the fact that I tried to grow them during hot summer months was a bad idea. The leaf of a lettuce is quite fragile that can't stand to be in direct sunlight. It will start to curdle and lose it own strength that's why many lettuce growers used to built their own green house.
A green house refers to be your vegetable sanctuary. It is the safest place for them to grow. Meaning it has to be covered with UV plastic, put some net shades, good ventilation, and some uses NFT. Well, as a newbie like me that didn't have that all kind of stuff as you know me.
I liked to do anything out from scratch and recycle. Doing it by myself means I had only limited resources. Though I had a lot in mind that I can literally build my own green house, that would be tough for the mean time. So allow me to share my cheapest and easy way how I grow my lettuce in bottle for the third time around.
SEEDS
We bought this new batch of seeds online. It is around 200 pieces and I sow a hundred of them. This time, I sterilized my cocopeat well by boiling it for 15 minutes or more. I prefer to do this since I used to use hydrogen peroxide to sterilize my previous medium which I guess wasn't enough to get rid of any bacteria or fungi that's left in that cocopeat.
I sow it at March 15, 2022 around 8 in the evening. There's no fancy thing happens. I just put those cocopeat in this vessel and just put those seeds and drag them down a little bit.
I sprayed some water on top ensuring it is all wet. The seeds and the cocopeat needs to moist all the time and be in a dark place in the first whole day.
Sorry, I don't have photos to show this time. I cover them with a trash plastic bag and place them in a dark area unbothered for 1 day.
This is how it looks like after a day. Almost all of them already break their outer shell so it is now ready to be in the sun.
After 2 days they have sprouted leaf. Looking at them makes my heart sing. I enjoy seeing them grow every single day.
Since I am using cocopeat, I do bottom watering. In this way the action starts directly to the roots. It is a critical stage, it doesn't need to be soaked in water. After 15 days, this is how it looks like.
TRANSPLANTING
It is now ready to be transfer. The best time to transfer your lettuce in their permanent place should be in the early evening and so on. The reason behind it is during the transplanting, we must avoid to much humidity especially this summer season. Atleast don't expose your newly tranplanted lettuce in direct sunlight.
(Painted Plastic Bottles)
(8oz plastic cups/styro cups with Nutrient Solution Water)
You need to prepare and let them adjust and adopt their new home. This method is called hardening stage. I do it atleast whole day without in direct sunlight.
After 15 days since transfer, this is how they look like. They grow and develop new leaves. The roots are already out on the styro cups which I loved the most.
Note: The bigger ones are my 2nd batch of lettuce and they are also big now. I also tried to plant some cherry tomatoes in hydroponics. I hope they will bare fruits too.
I hope that it will help someone with my own trials and error in planting lettuce in bottles. Will update for the harvest. Thanks for reading and keep safe.
