Some of the early lettuce I ended up leaving two to a cell, to see how they’d do. Now, I divided a bunch of those and potted them up singly to a much roomier 38-cell plug sheet (up from 72), and trimmed off all their leaves (and ate them). After the shock of transplanting straight from indoors to the greenhouse, the lettuce seedlings usually lose their bigger leaves anyway, so why not give them a head start?! It’s extremely time-consuming, all of this careful repotting and trimming—not practical for the market garden at all. But I know I’ll be closely watching the results of this early, cold-hoophouse planting, so I’ll see if they do better than the regular plugs. Later on in the season, I intend to keep experimenting in more practical ways, but time and many other things to do have their way with the best laid plans… (Hint: As a rule, it’s best to start seedlings in the biggest and DEEPEST container that you have room for in good light, and avoid potting up. The less you disturb roots, and the more room you give them to grow (especially, down), the better they seem to do when transplanted.)
I have found that a plant will usually grow over the long run, faster, if you just plant into the larger cell directly from seeds. If you have the room it will generally grow faster avoiding the transplant shock. Just a hint ;)
SFB: Thanks! I’ll update the post. I’m playing around with the early lettuce, I didn’t thin some of them, I want to see how multiplanting two in a spot will work. Then I decided to divide some out… I’m messing around a bit, edgy to get going outside! I guess if I don’t explain, it can be confusing… BTW, your trial garden looks brilliant!