Plant: early February to July
Harvest: early April to October
Easy to grow and ready to eat straight from the garden, lettuce is a brilliant summer veg. With a little more effort and equipment, you can have home-grown leaves for most of the year.
Sowing
The key to lettuce growing is to plant little and often: sow a short row every couple of weeks for a longer season.
You can start sowing outdoors once weeds begin to germinate, that's about late March or early April, and continue until late July.
Lettuce grows well with a little shade so save your sunny areas for other veg. It may fail to germinate in hot soil so is best sown when it's cool.
Aim to sow the small seed thinly, about 13mm/0.5" deep in rows 30cm/12" apart down to about 15cm apart for the smaller, loose leaf varieties. This should provide you with leaves from summer to autumn.
From around September, outdoor sowings will need to be protected with cloches.
For spring crops, sow in the greenhouse in early February, using a heated propagator and plant outdoors under cloches or in a polytunnel in early March.
For winter crops, use a heated greenhouse to September sow and grow on.
Growing
Once the seedlings produce true leaves or at least look reasonably established, thin them out. If you don't do this, the plants will be weedy and fail to produce a good crop.
Look on the seed packet for final spacings, but as a rough guide big lettuces need to be 30cm/12" apart, smaller types about 20cm/8" apart and loose-leaf types about 15cm/6" apart. It's best to thin in stages as seedlings may die leaving irritating gaps in your rows.
Keep the young plants well watered - water when it's cool for best effect. If you have problems with birds eating them, cover with mesh or horticultural fleece, both widely available from garden centres.
Harvesting
For the heart-producing varieties, harvest once the plant has a firm heart (give it a squeeze).
Loose leaf types can be picked over for a few leaves at a time from each plant or the whole lot can be cut off but make sure you cut about 5cm/2" above the crown or it won't resprout.
Try not to harvest in the heat of the day as the leaves will quickly wilt.
Varieties to try
- Enya - well-hearted butterhead for summer cropping in the open garden
- Attico - early cos lettuce with dense heads
- Romany - early to mature cos lettuce with some mildew resistance
- Beatrice - early to mature crisphead lettuce
- Cocarde - loose-leafed lettuce with bronze-tinged leaves
- Nika - Lollo Rossa red-leafed type, slow to bolt with good mildew resistance
