These lovely little lettuce plants are ready for the beds! I often grow lettuce from seed in little containers like these.

I sow new lettuce seeds around every other week. This is simply a great way to keep adding to your lettuce collection little by little. That way, I always have a batch of fresh leaves ready all season long.

A lot of you ask me about how I grow my lettuce at home. So, here are my best tips on growing lettuce from seed:

Many seeds in each pot

The lettuce in the picture was sown in a little plastic trough, the kind that you get when you buy cherry tomatoes. I filled it with regular garden soil and then just scattered the lettuce seeds on top, not too close together. After that, I just added a little soil over them.

This type of sowing is called broadcast-sowing. You can use this method for many different vegetables. Just pour the seeds on top of your soil and then the vegetables grow in little clusters.

The next step is to transplant the lettuce outside. I do this by just turning the trough upside down and then I split the plants so that I can plant them one by one.

Broadcast-sowing helps you get plenty of little plants even in a smaller area. I think that lettuce and other leafy greens is the perfect choice for this type of sowing, rather than doing it directly in the beds outside, that is. It's just a lot easier to take care of a small trough rather than tending a larger area with new little sowings.

More from Sara's Kitchen Garden: Creating new garden paths

I'm growing this lettuce from seed in my polytunnel. This is an iceberg lettuce.

More about lettuce: My favorite lettuce

Remember:

• don't put the seeds too close together
• supply water from underneath so that the seeds don't get completely drenched
• don't leave the vegetables in the trough for too long without extra nutrients
• sow new seeds frequently
• use different varieties

More about starting seeds: Starting seeds without pots

Spring and summer is actually the perfect time to grow lettuce from seed. Just keep growing lettuce by sowing a little at a time. Remember to buy a few different varieties too. The seed packets contain a lot of seeds and you can get a bit tired of using the same variety again and again. Good luck growing lettuce from seed at home!
/Sara Bäckmo