Lettuce Seeds 15g

Lettuce is the heart of every fresh salad bowl: cool, crisp leaves with a clean, mild flavour and a satisfying crunch. It is one of the easiest leafy greens to grow at home, giving you handfuls of tender leaves for salads, sandwiches and wraps. Because lettuce loves cool weather, it fits perfectly into Egypt's gentle winter season, where steady mild temperatures bring out the best texture and the sweetest, least bitter leaves.

Planting

Lettuce is a cool-season crop, so time it to mature before hot weather arrives. In the Nile Delta, the main sowing window runs from roughly late September through February, with successive sowings every two to three weeks for a continuous harvest; the December-January core gives the most reliable hearting because temperatures sit near the ideal cool range. In Upper Egypt, shift the window a little later and shorter, around November through January, and favour the faster, more heat-forgiving loose-leaf types over slow crisphead. Avoid sowing from May to September, when summer soil routinely climbs above 27°C and triggers poor germination and rapid bolting. Sow shallowly, about 0.6-1.3 cm deep, covering only lightly since lettuce seed needs light to germinate. Seeds sprout best at around 13-18°C and germinate poorly below 10°C or above 24-27°C; during warm spells, sow in the evening, water with cold water, and shade the soil to keep it cool. Thin loose-leaf seedlings to about 10-25 cm apart in the row (around 13 cm for baby leaf), and space hearting and romaine types about 25-30 cm apart, with rows roughly 45-75 cm apart.

Fertilizing

Lettuce has a medium-to-high appetite for nutrients. Work plenty of compost or organic matter into the bed before planting to give it a rich start. You can also apply a balanced complete fertiliser before planting, then side-dress with nitrogen once the plants are about 10 cm tall to push fast, leafy growth. Lettuce grown in fertile ground generally needs no extra feeding, while plants in containers benefit from a general-purpose liquid feed about every two weeks through the warm part of the season.

Care

Keep the soil consistently moist to drive rapid growth and prevent bolting; roughly 2.5 cm of water per week is enough, and more on sandy soils. Water little and often, ideally overhead in the morning, and avoid overwatering, which encourages root and leaf diseases; containers may need watering daily in summer. Lettuce grows well in full sun during the cool season but tolerates partial shade of four to six hours of direct light, and light midday shade during warm spells helps prevent bolting. Watch for aphids, cutworms, slugs and snails, flea beetles and leafhoppers, along with diseases such as downy mildew, grey mould and lettuce mosaic virus; floating row covers help exclude pests, and avoiding late-day overhead watering keeps foliage drier. Harvest in cool weather and earlier rather than later, since heat and over-maturity make leaves bitter. Pick single outer leaves as they reach a usable size, or cut the whole plant at the soil line once it is about 13-15 cm tall.