Planting out the early salad crops

The lettuce and beetroot that we have been growing were ready to plant out this week. We are growing these ones in pots so that we can provide them with some protection from the frost by bringing them in to the cold greenhouse overnight. Otherwise, our later sowings of lettuce and beetroot will be planted out into the garden.

This is the sort of size plant we’re looking for before planting out. You can see both some Little Gem and Iceberg lettuces in the photo. However, we have only planted the Little Gem out into a pot this time. We will grow the Iceberg on a little more and then plant these out.

We filled two pots with multipurpose compost and then watered these well to moisten the compost. Then we made a hole for each cell plant with our finger and popped a plant in the hole, making sure to firm this in before moving on to the next one.

And here they are, all planted out! We gave them a quick drink of water after planting out to firm the compost round their roots, and will keep them watered as and when they need some.