Harvesting Leaf Lettuce: How to Make Yours Produce for Weeks (or Months)

If harvesting lettuce is in your near future — especially if you’re growing lettuce for the first time — it’s time for us to talk about how to harvest lettuce and when to harvest lettuce.

Be sure to try this method for growing lettuce to eliminate pest damage!

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This post was originally published in April 2012; it has been updated.

Now that you’re growing your own lettuce, you want that work to pay off. What happens when you pull an entire head of lettuce from the ground roots and all? You eat a fresh salad, sure.

But more importantly, the entire plant has come to the end of the road. It will no longer provide lovely greens for your family.

How to Harvest Head Lettuce

Head lettuce and romaine lettuce are grown to be harvested whole, and this is what you’ll see most often in the produce department at the supermarket. Butter lettuce is also often produced for its full heads.

To harvest head lettuce, you’ll use a sharp knife to cut the lettuce off at its base. Do this very close to the ground.

Once cut, remove several of the outer leaves and send them off to the compost.

How to Harvest Leaf Lettuce

Instead of cutting the head from the stalk as you do when harvesting head lettuce (thus ending the fresh salads), you can harvest leaf lettuce varieties one leaf at a time.

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First, what do I mean by leaf lettuce? These are the varieties of lettuce that don’t form a compact head. The green and red lettuce you find at the grocery store fall into this category. Butter lettuce forms a somewhat loose head and it can be harvested this way as well.

I prefer to grow leaf lettuce, because that window of when to harvest lettuce is so much wider with this type of lettuce. And knowing how to harvest lettuce will help that crop produce for many weeks.

To harvest individual leaves, use a pair of scissors, garden shears, or a sharp knife to remove the larger outer leaves near the base of the plant at the stem. Leave the central leaves intact and the entire lettuce plant will continue to grow.

Unless you’re aiming for beautiful heads, use the cut and come again method to harvest your crop.

Harvesting lettuce this way allows the plant to continue growing and producing leaves, providing you with fresh green vegetables for weeks and weeks rather than for a single meal.

The photo on the left (above) is what my lettuce looked like before a harvest. The photo on the right is after harvesting. Within a week, it will look like that first picture again. I snipped off those lovely outer leaves, made a beautiful salad from that loose leaf lettuce, and those same plants will feed us again soon.

This is a great method for harvesting lettuce for anyone who puts work into a garden (might as well get the most bang for your buck, right?) but it’s an especially good tip for urban gardeners who don’t have a lot of space. Make those container gardens work for you!

When to Harvest Lettuce

When to harvest lettuce this way? As soon as the lettuce leaves reach a couple of inches in length, you can begin harvesting “baby lettuce.”

It’s a good idea to make a note on your calendar when your greens are expected to mature. To do this, check the seed packet for ‘days to maturity’ and do some calculating. Lettuce can take 65-100 days or so to reach maturity, depending on the variety that you tuck into your garden bed.

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For head lettuce (sometimes called crisphead lettuce), like the iceberg lettuce you see in the supermarket — you’ll know when to harvest it based on the size and shape of the head. It should be firm, with a well-shaped head. It’s harvested by cutting the head off the stalk. Romaine lettuce will form a tall, narrow head.

When Lettuce Bolts

Lettuce plants will continue to produce new leaves until the plant begins to flower and make new seeds. When mature plants begin to set lettuce seed like this it is called “bolting” in gardening circles.

When you see this happening — a sturdy seed stalk will emerge from the center of the plant — stop harvesting. Lettuce leaves lose their flavor and develop a bitter taste at this stage. (Feed them to the chickens, though – they won’t mind!)

Keeping Lettuce Fresh

Once you’ve harvested lettuce, sort through and discard any leaves that are yellowed, bug-bitten, or otherwise unappealing.

Fill a bowl or basin with water and add leaves in batches, making sure that there’s enough room to swish the leaves around. Swish them around to remove small dirt particles or pests that may have hitched a ride. Once you rinse the leaves, roll them up in a damp kitchen towel and store in the fridge. Lettuce will last for up to a week stored in the refrigerator like this, with a bit of moisture.

Embrace Succession Planting

While you can extend the life of each lettuce plant by harvesting in this manner, another way to be sure to have lettuce as long as possible is to embrace succession planting. Instead of planting just once, stagger plantings so that you’ll have crops maturing every two to three weeks across the growing season.

That way, as one batch of plants comes to the end of their lives, new heads will be ready to harvest. I suggest setting a reminder to plant more lettuce — if you’re like me, you’ll forget! You can read more about the concept of succession planting here.

Keep in mind that lettuce grows best in cool weather. Plan to grow salad greens during the spring and again in the fall if you live in a region with hot summers. Or try experimenting with growing lettuce indoors!

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Source: https://gardencourte.com
Categories: Garden news