Growing Lush, Green, Crisp Lettuce

Growing Lush, Green, Crisp Lettuce

If there’s any crop you need to grow at home during this pandemic, it’s lettuce. Homegrown lettuce tastes significantly better and contains way more vitamins than store-bought head lettuce — in an extreme way. In this complete guide, we talk about how to grow lettuce. 

Growing lettuce is actually quite easy and takes up little space, making it perfect for container gardening. It’s an exciting local crop — perfect for gardeners of all experience types, homesteads, and climates — and will add immense flavor and nutritional value to your every day life. 

There are five primary types of lettuce: Butterhead, Crisphead, Leaf, Romaine and Summer Crisp. As the foundation of your salad and your garden, lettuce is an ideal garden vegetable. You can tuck it into small areas, it grows easily and it loves cool weather. These lettuce growing tips will keep your garden and salad bowl full of crisp, green lettuce.

How to Grow Lettuce

Lettuce is an easy-to-grow annual vegetable. To grow great lettuce, find a site that offers at least six to eight hours of direct sun. It is possible to grow lettuce in partial shade (three to four hours of sun), but in low light I would suggest planting loose-leaf varieties which grow faster than heading types. Once you’ve picked your spot, prepare the bed for planting by digging in an inch or two of compost or aged manure.

Lettuce also makes a fantastic container and wood pallet plant. It produces a shallow root system and can be grown in any container that is at least four to six inches deep and has drainage holes.

Fertilizing Your Lettuce

Lettuce plants thrive in nutrient-rich soil. Once the seedlings emerge, a dose of fertilizer can be applied to maximize lettuce leaf production. Choose a well-balanced fertilizer with equal parts nitrogen, potassium and phosphate. I highly recommend technigrow available at FT Farfan. 

Watering Your Lettuce

You don’t need lettuce to develop deep roots. In fact, you want to encourage leaf growth over rooting. Lettuce watering should be light, frequent and consistent. The goal is to simply keep the soil moist. Avoid watering too often – over watering leads to root rot, disease and stunted growth. 

Harvesting Your Lettuce

You don’t have to worry about how to pick lettuce – it’s one of the simplest vegetables to harvest. Most lettuce can be harvested between 30 to 70 days after planting. When to harvest lettuce depends on the variety and what it will be used for. Really, timing is based on individual preference. Once your lettuce reaches the size you want, it’s ready! Harvesting lettuce in the morning gives you the best flavor.

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