I need a little bit of help w/ iceberg lettuce

I have never planted iceberg before and am not sure how it should look (I bought some starter plants). How will I know if the plants "took" or not? At the moment they look like leaf lettuce and could be a wee bit perkier. Anybody have any tips or tricks that may help me keep my little lettuce friends growing strong?

Here's a pic of some iceberg lettuce growing. Hope this helps a lil.

Head lettuce looks "leafy" when young but the leaves start to curl togther and form a head as they grow out from the middle.

Ok I just ran outside and took a picture LOL yes it is dark out seen as how it is after 9:30pm but it's a decent pic and HOPEFULLY you will be able to see the plants well enough to give me an idea if I did something right

Wow your camera has a great white balance to compensate for the flash. Good color too. Well the color still looks good and the leaves don't look wimpy. Possibly they are just being stubborn. My butternut leaf lettuce just sat for a few weeks and now it's really taking off. I say just keep on keepin on.

Thank you Sir I appreciate it! I have so much info in my head from reading lately sometimes I'm just not sure if I'm doing it right. As for the camera we got it a few years ago, it's a 7mp pentax optio. I does a really good job when you need it to.

That's what mine looked like last year when I planted it. You can see the leaves starting to curl in the middle of your lower plants. Your lettuce will start forming a head in the middle where they grow out from. Don't worry your lettuce is normal, it will perk up a bit once it settles in from the transplant, I remember mine wilting a bit too when I first put it into the garden.



Here is a photo of one of my 4x4 SFG boxes in mid-June last year, last frost is usually late May for us so I don't have anything current to share (just starting seed now).

My great lakes head lettuce (similar to iceberg) was leafy like yours when I planted it. I put 2 per sq to give it room as I thought it would get big like cabbage for some reason, I never found out how big it would get as the deer ate them a couple weeks after this photo was taken -- there are 4 of them behind the pepper plants in the middle of the third row. It was starting form into heads here, only 2 weeks after transplanting with some of the initial single leaves dying back.

Can any of the 'head' lettuces be grown here in the south? I have some of the 'loose leaf' varieties... but my wife and son insist we need heads of lettuce for salad. I thought I had seen some in one of my books, but was curious as to others' luck with those varieties and the like.

What is the spacing for iceberg? One per square?

I'm thinking of trying some in a square that will be quite shaded by other plants (tomatoes/squash) but is hard to reach (thus the need for not having to harvest often - once will be good). Or maybe I'll go with celery...

I think iceberg is 4 per square, but I lent my SFG book out - (what was I thinking????)

I couldn't find it in the book - but just did a quick browse. It says "lettuce" but I believe that is in reference to leaf lettuce. So I didn't know if a head lettuce would be more like cabbage. The only other reference I found said that you can do the head lettuce 4 per square if harvesting the outer leaves often to keep them small. Since I won't be able to reach it well, I'm thinking I may have to go with one per square.