Topic: Help! My Corn Salad/Lambs Lettuce won't germinate!!

[Epiphany]

What am I doing wrong?

I have tried indoor, outdoor, sowing direct into compost, on wet tissue, covered, uncovered......

It just won't grow!!!!
 ???

Jenny

[Mortality]

Contact who you bought it from and get a replacement or money back, sounds to me like it's no good.

[small]

My input isn't really much help, just to say this was a crop I tried years ago and gave up with because I couldn't get it to germinate, ever......has anyone out there been successful?

[Epiphany]

Mortality, this is the fourth or fifth pack of seeds I've tried, all different brands from different shops. I feel like such a numpty, all the packs etc say it's so easy to grow. Not for me it isn't!!!

[saddad]

I've grown it... don't remember any difficulty.... but did it as an Autumn/Winter veg... so maybe it likes a slightly warmer start.
Just as an aside I was in Nottingham on Saturday evening and saw loads of Purslane growing in the pavements on the ropewalk...  :-\

[Ian Pearson]

I have it self-sown everywhere on my plots. It won't germinate in warm conditions, which could explain the failure indoors, but it should be cool enough for it outdoors at this time of year.

[Bugloss2009]

maybe it's old seed. I've just sown some that's about 5 years old, so we'll see

[antipodes]

Yes I was going to say that corn salad is grown here, in my local region - we are the biggest world producers! It goes out at the end of summer only, we crop it autumn through winter, and it is planted either in loose compost or the big producers grow it in mostly sand (that gets gritty though). I don't think you are growing it at the right time. It prefers the cool and the declining  days. Usually it is grown in big patches as it comes up like rosettes.

[Epiphany]

maybe it's old seed. I've just sown some that's about 5 years old, so we'll see

I'll wait for a while, I've just read it can take up to 21 days to germinate, so time will tell hey??

[Epiphany]

Well I won't get excited just yet, but I stuck them in my bathroom cupboard 10 days ago and there are now tiny seedlings dotted here and there.

We don't know why things grow in that cupboard, it's not warm (not an airing cupboard) it's cool and dark, but it does seem to magically germinate things. We sowed chillis and put half in the cupboard and half on a window sill, the ones from the cupboard are twice the size of the others. It's wierd! Perhaps it's a magic cupboard......

I'll keep you posted with any progress!

[Bugloss2009]

yes antipodes is right, and it's a winter salad, but  will do OK for a bit in the early part of the season.

problem for me with it is it doesn't look like the stuff you get in mixed salads from the supermarket, and it tends to get mildew (for me anyway)

a French type restaurant near us used to serve things "with a maché salad". Cornsalad should have been mache. Maché means "chewed-up" (nearly)  ;D