Moxie Gardener

Lettuce seeds are available in many varieties in shades of green or red.

There are few things more refreshing than a salad of sweet, crisp, spring lettuce fresh from the garden. Lettuce is easy to grow and a good crop for the beginning gardener.

Lettuce originates in the areas of the Mediterranean around Turkey, Iran and the Near East. It is still found growing wild all over Europe and in temperate parts of Asia.

The first mention of cultivated lettuce is found in Greek historical records dating to 450 BC. Egyptian tomb paintings depict Cos lettuce as early as 4500 BC.

The botanical name of lettuce is Lactuca sativa, which is Latin for “milk sap,” referring to the milky liquid it exudes when cut.

Lettuce was one of the first crops that I grew with large success. I started seeds in the house, transplanted them outside and ended up with so much lettuce of a dozen varieties that I gave it away to family, friends, and neighbors and still had more than we could eat.

The secret to successfully growing lettuce is fertile soil, adequate moisture, and cool weather.

Start lettuce seeds indoors about three to four weeks before you plan to set outdoors. It is safe to set out lettuce transplants when daytime temperatures in your location stay above freezing. They can handle a little cold weather, but cover if freezing temperatures are expected. You can also direct seed lettuce; for some reason, lettuce that is direct seeded seems better able to handle cold weather than transplants.

Last fall as an experiment I planted several varieties of lettuce seeds to winter over (here’s a link to that post). So far, nothing has come up yet but it’s still early here in Minneapolis.

Plant lettuce seeds in early to mid-spring as soon as the soil is dry enough to work. Sow seeds right next to each other in rows about a foot apart or plant intensively by broadcasting seeds. As the seedlings grow, thin to four to six inches apart.

As soon as the seedlings are about two inches high, you can start to harvest. My method is to thin by pulling the largest plants, pinching off the roots, and eating them for dinner. The smaller plants are left to grow on. If you continue to do this, by the time hot summer weather arrives you will still have small, succulent lettuce plants. Hot weather turns them bitter, but smaller plants seems to stay sweet longer than mature ones.

If you’re planting lettuce transplants, plant them about six inches apart in all directions, or four inches apart in rows that are a foot apart. My method for harvesting transplants is to pick the large outer leaves of each plant. They will continue to grow and produce new leaves, but these larger, more mature plants will turn bitter faster when hot weather arrives than direct seeded lettuce.

For a continuous supply of either baby seedlings or outer leaves of transplants, make succession plantings every week until late spring. In late summer, direct seed again for a fall crop. Plant fall lettuce seeds twice as deep as spring planted seeds to protect them from the heat of late summer. By the time the seedlings are up and growing, cool fall weather will have arrived.

Lettuce and all salad greens are one of my favorite things to grow (and eat). Look for more posts about them throughout the growing season.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 1:33 PM and is filed under Salad Greens, Spring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.