[davithjoParticipant]

Sorry to add to the various suggestions but found the following Ebay posting for 22 60 cell polystyrene trays used once by a Nursery in Norfolk. See video on the posting and they look strong and reasonably deep.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Plug-plant-seed-trays-22-x-60-cell-seed-trays-polystyrene-plug-trays-/161882851086?hash=item25b0f8470e:g:zHcAAOSwQoFWQK9B
Hope it helps.

[davithjoParticipant]

[davithjoParticipant]

Paul I thought I would let you know that I had major problems last year in lettuce Red Grenoble and I was advised by Don Foley to try sowing the seed on the surface of the compost. To cut a long story short Charles also advised to try and save my own seed which I did last summer. This week I have sown a small batch of seeds using B & Q Verve multi purpose compost, which I have used with success for several years, and low and behold after 3 days the seeds have germinated. This I may add was using a 7 tray heated propagator. That proves certainly with lettuce seed you don’t have to cover the seed for success.

[davithjoParticipant]

Hi Charles,
You will probably remember back in early April this year I wrote to you re my saga of poor germination of Red Grenoble lettuce seeds, one of your favoured varieties.
I received great guidance from yourself and Don Foley, who suggested I may want to try his method of sowing the seeds on the surface of the compost without covering them.
Well what happened next was I was growing some of this variety of lettuce which was sown in August 2014 in a long raised bed covered with sheets of glass following the No Dig method.
As you said you saved your own seeds I decided to leave 3 plants to go to seed. These plants were left and in early September I put the branches with the seeds into a large plastic bag
in order to remove the seeds at home. During this exercise some seeds fell onto the compost in the raised bed. To cut this long story short and true to Don’s words, low and behold the seeds
germinated by themselves on the compost in the raised bed. The seedlings were left to fend for themselves and then when the seedlings were big enough I transplanted them in to 3, 12 cell trays and grew them
on until they were big enough to transplant into my small greenhouse and also another raised bed on the 4th October. The plants in both areas have taken off.
This proves the point of both you and Don that provided you have viable seeds and good compost everything flows like a dream.
Hope it will be a lesson for other people to try saving your own lettuce seed and to try sowing the seeds on the surface of good compost.
Thanks for your great site and all the advice flowing from it.
Regards
David

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