When can I plant lettuce? Fall planting
Fall is here and that means we have to start thinking about what to plant in your veggie garden. The weather is slowly cooling down. I am writing this obviously when we have a major heat wave, but next week we are seeing lower temperatures. The summer crop in your garden is coming to an end.
At the beginning of fall you have two choices. You can plant things from seeds. I plant them into small trays and then transfer seedlings over to individual small pots. Once plants are big enough, I plant them in my garden.
Your other option is to buy ready seedlings and plant them into the garden. There is no better or worse option here. I personally love looking at the little seedling sprouts. I experiment with different soils for them. But if I want just two broccoli plants in my garden, I would simply buy two seedlings at the nursery.
There are some fall veggies that do better when planted straight into the ground from seed. Those are radishes, carrots, cilantro, and dill. They do better not being transferred from seeding into the ground.
Other things that you can plant now are all the leafy things like lettuce, bok choy, chard, spinach, and mustard green. From the mustard family you can plant broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, kale, cabbage, and brussel sprouts. Additionally to carrots and radish, you can plant beets.
As for soil you should be adding some new nutrients to your veggie garden. Layer of compost, some all purpose veggie fertilizer, biochard, worm castings, fish emulsion, kelp, are just some things that will be great to add. If I had to just pick two things, I will go with all purpose fertilizer and compost.
My favorite nurseries that have a great selection of veggie seedlings are Orta ( Venice Blvd. and Sepulveda Blvd.), C&S (Hauser and Obama Blvd.), and Armstrong. (Sepulveda Blvd). Armstrong also carries a nice selection of seeds.
In general fall is your best time to plant most things in Culver City. The plant will have a whole cool season to get established before the summer heat. So if you are dreaming about fruit trees and maybe removing the grass from your yard, this is the time to do it.
I cannot give you an exact day on when to plant since as I am writing this article, it is 90 degrees outside and it is October. But once the weather cools down you will be good to go. I am thinking that it will be October 12 looking at the weather right now. So if you want some lettuce, next week maybe a good week to plant them. At this moment you can start some seedlings and enjoy the little magic of baby plants coming out from the soil that you will plant later in the season.
I find that so magical and it sure gives me hope for the world.
I hope that Victory Gardens one day will return to United States and we all will know how delicious lettuce is from your garden. So go out there and plant some lettuce this Fall.
Joanna Kotwis
Happy Gardening and Planting!
