Lettuce is notoriously hard to germinate at warm temperatures. With the front coming, the expected cloud cover and light rain expected in the Houston area, today and tomorrow are good days to plant lettuce. This should keep the soil temperature in an ok range for a week to get the lettuce sprouted.

You don't want to plant much. Just a few feet. I tend to grow in 6-7 foot sections. I usually mix a couple varieties. You should plan on planting a few feet of lettuce every 2 to 3 weeks depending on the variety you are growing. Also, most loose leaf lettuce will give you 2 or more harvest or you could pick a little from each plant a bunch of times. I have had much more luck with loose leaf lettuce than head lettuce. So much so, that I do not even grow head lettuce anymore. Make sure to thin them out after they come up to at least 3-4 inches on center.

You will have better luck with lettuce later, but this first crop is always special. An early start lets you get more successions of lettuces grown before spring planting. I usually start the new lettuce in-between the growing lettuce about a week before I plan to harvest it for the last time. You will learn when lettuce is close to bolting by taste after growing it a few times. If you do it this way, make sure to cut it off at ground level so the pulling up the roots will not disturb your newly sown seeds.