How to Grow Lettuce: The Complete Guide (2024)

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Lettuce prefers a location with 5 to 6 hours of sun, but can benefit from afternoon shade when temperatures soar. Soil should be loose, well-draining, and moist but not soggy. In the weeks prior to planting, amend with plenty of compost for addedfertility.

Or grow lettuces in pots or tubs of potting soil. Lettuce prefers a bright, open position with good air circulation to promote strong, disease-freegrowth.

Lettuce is a cool-season crop, so in hot climates, you may get better results growing it in a cooler, shadier spot, especially as the young plants start out. Either way, lettuces don’t take long to reach maturity, which makes them an excellent choice for growing in between slower-to-establish crops such as corn orleeks.

When to PlantLettuce

• Soil temperatures between 45°F and 65°F (7°C and18°C) are ideal. Cold-adapted varieties can survive much lowertemperatures.
• Make the earliest sowings under cover from late winter to grow on in greenhouse or hoop house beds for a super-early harvest. Then, from early spring, it’s time to sow for growingoutside.
• Direct sowing is recommended. Sow seeds in the ground 2 to 4 weeks before your last springfrost dateor as soon as the ground can beworked.
• Or, to get a head start, start seeds indoors about 1 month before your last spring frost date. Harden off seedlings for 3 days to a week before settingoutdoors.
• If you are buying transplants (small plants) from a garden center or nursery,you may plant between 2 weeks before your last spring frost to 2 weeks after your last springfrost.
• In most regions, it’s possible to plant anothercrop of lettuce in the fall or even early winter. See our Planting Calendar for plantingdates.
• Tip: To plant a fall crop, create cool soil in late August by moistening the ground and covering it with a bale of straw. A week later, the soil under the bale will be about 10°F (6°C) cooler than the rest of the garden. Sow a three-foot row of lettuce seeds every couple of weeks—rotate the straw bale around thegarden.

How to PlantLettuce

• Sowings may be made directly into prepared soil or into module trays of multipurpose potting soil. To sow direct, remove any weeds then rake the soil level to a fine, crumbly texture. Mark out shallow drills, 8 to 12 inches or 20 to 30cm apart, using a stringline as a guide if this helps. Then sow the tiny seeds in clusters—a pinch of seeds every four inches or 10cm. Backfill the seed drills, label with the variety andwater.
• Since the seed is so small, a well-tilled seedbed is essential. Stones and large clods of dirt will inhibitgermination.
• Plant seeds 1/8 to 1/4 of aninch deep. Lettuce seeds need light to germinate, so don’t sow them toodeep.
• Seeds may be sown in single rows or broadcast for wide row planting (loose-leaf varieties are best for this). When broadcasting, thin 1- to 2-inch tall seedlings for the properspacing.
• Spacing between plants depends on the variety:
  • Loose-leaf lettuce: Plant or thin to 4 inchesapart.
  • Romaine (cos) and butterhead (loose-head, Bibb, Boston) lettuce: Plant or thin to 8 inchesapart.
  • Crisphead (iceberg) lettuce: Plant or thin to 16 inchesapart.
• Set rows of lettuce 12 to 15 inchesapart.
• Sow additional seeds every 2 weeks for a continuousharvest.
• Consider planting rows of chives or garlic between your lettuce to control aphids. They act as “barrier plants” for thelettuce.
• Water thoroughly with a mist nozzle at time of transplanting orseeding.

For a fall crop, cool the soil in August by moistening it and covering it with a bale of straw. One week later, the soil under the bale should be a few degrees cooler than the rest of the garden and ready to be sown with a 2-foot row of lettuce. Repeat the process every couple of weeks by rotating the straw bale around the garden. As autumn temperatures decline, seed as usual for a fallharvest.

You can help transplants along at the start of the season by covering them with a temporary cloche made from bottomless milk cartons or plastic bottles. These will keep the chill off your seedlings just enough to help them acclimatize. Newly planted lettuces may also be helped with a simple row cover orfleece.

• Fertilize 3 weeks after transplanting with organic alfalfa meal or another slow-release fertilizer to provide a steady stream ofnitrogen.
• Make sure the soil remains moist but not overly wet. It should drain well. Overwatering leads to disease or softgrowth.
• Lettuce will tell you when it needs water. Just look at it. If the leaves are wilting, sprinkle them anytime, even in the heat of the day, to cool them off and slow down the transpiration rate. Using row covers can also help to keep lettuce from drying out in thesun.
• An organic mulch will help conserve moisture, suppress weeds, and keep soil temperatures cool throughout the warmermonths.
• Weed by hand if necessary, but be careful of damaging your lettuce plants’ shallowroots.

How to DelayBolting

• Bolting is a common problem caused by warm temperatures (over 70°F/20°C) or changes in day length. When a lettuce plant bolts, it starts to produce a central stem and seed stalk, andleaves take on abitterflavor.
• To delay bolting, cover plants with a shade cloth so that they get filtered light. Be sure to maintain watering throughout the warmest parts of the growing season,too.
• Planning your garden so that lettuce will be in the shade of taller plants, such as tomatoes or sweet corn, may reduce bolting in the heat of thesummer.

Some of our favorite varietiesinclude:

• Crisphead:‘Great Lakes’, ‘Ithaca’, ‘King Crown’, ‘Mission’,‘Summertime’
• Romaine (Cos)/Butterhead:‘Burpee Bibb’, ‘Cosmo Savoy’, ‘Green Towers’, ‘Little Gem’, ‘Paris White Cos’, ‘Parris Island’,‘Valmaine’
• Loose-Leaf: ‘Black Seeded Simpson’, ‘Green Ice’, ‘Ibis’, ‘Lollo Rossa’, ‘Oak Leaf’, ‘Prizehead’, ‘Salad Bowl’,‘Slobolt’
• Red Leaf:‘New Red Fire’, ‘Red Sails’, ‘Ruby Red’(Not recommended for hot weather areas;the red pigment absorbs moreheat.)

…But there are so many more types of lettuce to explore! Check out this video to find varieties of lettuce and salad greens that you can grow in containers for an urbangarden.

Harvest lettuce in the morning when full-size but young and tender.Check your garden every day for ready-to-harvest leaves; mature lettuce gets bitter and woody and will go badquickly.

• Before maturity, you can harvest leaf lettuce by simply removing the outer leaves so that the center leaves can continue togrow.
• Harvest butterhead, romaine, and loose-leaftypes by removing the outer leaves, digging up the whole plant, or cutting the plant about an inch above the soil surface. A second harvest is often possible when using the first or thirdmethods.
• Enjoy your lettuces over a longer period by cutting just a few leaves from each plant at a time. Called cut-and-come-again harvesting, harvesting like this not only prolongs the cropping period—so individual plants crop for anywhere up to two months—it will also give you many more leaves in total. Cut or twist the leaves from the stem, taking care not to damage it. Leave the central leaves untouched to grow on for the nextcut.
• Crisphead lettuce is picked when the center isfirm.

How to StoreLettuce

• Store lettuce in a loose plastic bag in the refrigerator for up to 10days.
• When ready to use, put the harvested lettuce in cold water for a few minutes. Then, placein a salad spinner or towel. Spin the spinner to remove water from thelettuce.
• Lettuce leaves havewilted? Put the leaves in a bowl of cold water with ice cubes and soak for about 15minutes.

Ready to see how it’s done? Check out this video demo on growinglettuce!

Catherine Boeckmann