How to Grow Lettuce

Beautiful Salad Garden

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One of the nice things about spring is the availability of fresh lettuce from the garden. It likes to grow in the early cool days before the heat of the summer sets in. When others are paying a premium for salad greens, you can walk out your door and pick super fresh lettuce and have it on your table in minutes. There are a multitude of varieties to choose from. You can grow a few to have a mixed assortment for a beautiful salad bowl.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

String
2 Stakes
Lettuce seeds

Step1

Prepare an area. It is good if you can set aside about 12 to 18 square inches for each plant--to allow for air circulation. Work in a good amount of composted dirt and remove rocks and weeds.

Step2

Mark a row using a string with two stakes. Lettuce seeds are tiny and barely need to be covered, so drag a shallow line in the dirt with a stick about 1/2 inch deep.

Step3

Sprinkle the seeds along the shallow line. With your hands, lightly cover the seeds with a light covering of dirt. Water with a fine mist daily until the little seedlings appear.

Step4

Thin the plants, saving the little leaves for salad additions. Keep the plants about 6 inches apart, until they start getting larger and crowding each other--at which time they can be thinned again to leave the plants 12 inches apart.

Step5

Harvest the lettuce at any time by cutting the outer leaves from the plant. Leave enough leaves on the plant for healthy continued growth. Some people prefer to leave the plant alone to allow for heading.

Step6

The lettuce plant should continue to produce leaves until the heat of the summer sets in. If you allow some of the plants to bolt, they will flower and set seeds. Allow them to grow freely and they will reseed themselves. As the new little seedlings emerge, transplant them to an area where you want them to grow. Or alternatively, you can save the seeds for early fall.