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Old 04-29-2012, 07:16 PM
Kerbouchard Kerbouchard is offline
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: Pacific NW
Posts: 19
Default Lettuce, second season

Last year's lettuce setup was a complete success as far as I'm concerned. I had 26 plants between two 10 foot drain pipes and a 20-something gallon reservoir, and enjoyed a continuous supply of lettuce through the summer. We tried a continuous harvest approach, where we just pulled the outer leaves regularly. This worked but we did end up with all of the plants bolting toward the end of the summer.

So this year I'm expanding a bit, and hope to be able to harvest full heads on a weekly basis. I'm starting a bit later than I wanted, but I should get a few rotations in this season. I'm hoping to start about 25 per week through the summer.

The reservoir was going to be far too small for what I wanted to do, so I put two 55 gallon barrels about half-way into the ground to serve as reservoirs. My thought was that this should help keep the nutrients cool, and since I need to drain back into the barrels, burying them lowers the water height. I've also put in a short shed that covers the top half of the barrels, and provides a dry enclosure for the air pump and nutrient storage.

I'm hoping that next weekend I can get the 10-12 tubes in place and the piping set up. I just seeded the first 25 Rapid Rooter plugs today (using fresh seeds, since last week's year-old seeds never grew).

Looking forward to a green and healthy summer!


Lettuce hydro shed


Inside the lettuce hydro shed

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