My poor leggy lettuce leaves

a1cat

Too many seeds too close together, wrong medium with not much food in it

smallblueplanet

a1cat wrote: »

Too many seeds too close together, wrong medium with not much food in it

Yes, yes, no. Seeds/lings shouldn't need too much food in the compost to germinate & grow for a bit. Although we normally just use multi-purpose compost, rather than seed compost, for most veggie seeds.

We sow our salad seeds almost individually - they're not too small - or a small pinch to a small module. Then thin them out or pr1ck them out & on. When you pr1ck out seedlings hold the leaves (always) not the stems.

Edit - because the word pr1ck was censored!

Kyrae

As far as I know you can eat them anytime, even if its just seedlings! I've always eated the seedlings ive pulled out when thinning them and its never done me any harm! I've just pinched off the root, but you can probably eat that too if you rinse the dirt off i expect!

savemoney

I would transplant them into pots. I think you can eat them when small obviously bigger than they are now. Lettuce can regrow from being cut.

BallandChain

Thank guys. I thinned out the seedlings as best as I could (so tall that they were entwined!) and placed some thinnings in two small window boxes. The rest has been put in the fridge to be washed again as all the compost was stuck to them despite a few washes. Will use OH as a guinea pig, lol as he is going to eat some first, though I'm happy to eat them as they look like cress. If the ones growing don't pick up I'll just keep using the remaining 'thinnings' but next time I'll snip them off as the compost was difficult to get off. At least nothing has been wasted and I've learnt my lesson not to over sow! Smallblueplanet I used multi purpose compost so think I'm ok.