Growing Lettuce

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The dozens of lettuce varieties available for purchase today means everyone's favorite salad starter, lettuce, can be grown in everyone's garden. If you consider the fact that native lettuce plants such as Miner's Lettuce grow year after year without any care, it sounds even more reasonable to suggest that domesticated lettuce varieties really are easy to grow.

All things being equal, the most difficult decision in the lettuce growing enterprise may very well be choosing among the many varieties. In a plus for organic gardeners, more than a handful of lettuce varieties are available as certified organic seeds.

Soil Conditions: As a leafy green salad starter, most of the lettuce varieties on the market are cold weather plants that grow well in healthy soil in the 6.0 to 7.0 pH range. Nitrogen rich soil aids leaf growth.

Planting Tips: Start spring lettuce indoors and transplant it to the garden when the plants have a handful of leaves blooming.

Spacing: Most family gardens can do well by planting two rows of lettuce and spinach combined, with each row measuring about four feet long. The lettuce plants are placed in the ground with the starter leaver showing, and space about three to four inches apart.

Plant Care: Slugs and snails enjoy lettuce as much as people enjoy it. Keeping the garden weed free helps reduce the slug and snail population.

Harvesting Tips: Average growing time for lettuce to go from seed to salad bowl is approximately fifty days. Staggering the planting time in two week intervals means fresh salad greens are available throughout the season.

© 2009. Patricia A. Michaels