Lactuca sativa var. acephala
leaf lettuce
Common names: cut lettuce
At a glance
- Light
- Partial shade
- Spacing
- 20 cm, rows 25 cm
- Lifespan
- Annual
- Sowing
- Mar–Aug
- Harvest
- May–Oct
- Hardiness
- Cold damage below −4 °C
- Water need
- High
- For children
- Well suited
Photo: CostaPPPR · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
Leaf lettuce does not form a head but an open rosette of individual leaves that you harvest leaf by leaf instead of the whole plant. This makes it valuable because it provides fresh greens for many weeks and is the ideal filler between slower-growing crops.
Care instructions
Plant it densely directly in the bed and harvest the outer leaves continuously as soon as they reach a hand length, then the center will regrow again. Keep the soil evenly moist so the leaves stay mild and tender, because dryness makes them bitter. Sow a small transplant every two to three weeks, then you will have a continuous supply all summer.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
SowingMar–Aug
HarvestMay–Oct
Germination
- Soil temperature
- from 5 °C, ideally 18 °C
- Days to sprout
- 3 to 7 days
- Light
- Needs light to sprout
- Sowing depth
- Press in, don't cover
- How to start
- Sow straight into the bed
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
humus-rich, loamy, well-drained, nutrient-rich
Loose-leaf lettuce likes loose, humus-rich soil that holds water but never lets it stand. On heavy clay, mature compost helps to loosen it. Keep the pH slightly acidic to neutral (6 to 7): below 6, manganese problems threaten, and well above 7 trace nutrients become poorly available.
Lettuce and other daisy-family plants are light to moderate feeders: a break of about 3 years is enough, and they work well as gap fillers between the main crops.
Feeding
Light feeder
Months
Mar–Aug
Loose-leaf lettuce is undemanding. Work mature compost in shallowly before sowing or planting; that is usually enough for the whole crop. For successional sowings from spring to late summer, add a little compost again before each new round. Avoid fresh manure and nitrogen-rich liquid feeds; too much nitrogen accumulates nitrate in the leaf and drives the lettuce to bolt.
Overwintering
Loose-leaf lettuce is an annual and dies off in winter. There is no plant to overwinter in the true sense. For a longer harvest, sow again in August/September and cover the young plants with horticultural fleece or a polytunnel; with lasting night frost, that is the end, so sow again in spring.
Propagation
Methods
- From seed
Loose-leaf lettuce is an annual crop and is propagated exclusively by sowing. Vegetative methods such as division or cuttings are not practical, because the plant forms no rhizome, runners or tubers. One advantage: there are practically no F1 hybrids among lettuces, so your own saved seed stays true to type.
Loose-leaf lettuce is a light germinator. So always cover the seeds only with a very thin layer (at most 2 to 3 mm) or just press them lightly into the moist soil. Even when sowing directly, draw only very shallow drills, not deep furrows, otherwise the seed germinates poorly.
Starting indoors (from the end of February): Sow the seeds in shallow seed trays on low-nutrient seed compost, moisten evenly and place the trays in a bright spot, but not in full sun, at around 10 to 16 °C. The seedlings appear after 8 to 14 days. As soon as they can be handled easily, prick them out into individual pots and plant them out later with about 25 to 30 cm between rows and 15 to 20 cm in the row.
Direct sowing outdoors (from mid-April, then continuously until August): Sow only once there is no more risk of frost and the soil is at least 10 °C. Draw only very shallow drills and sow thinly. After emergence, thin to about 15 to 20 cm. Since loose-leaf lettuce tends to bolt in warmth above around 20 °C, put summer sowings in partial shade or use bolt-resistant varieties. Successional sowing every 3 to 4 weeks ensures a continuous harvest into autumn.
Saving seed: If you let one or two plants bolt completely and ripen, you can shake out the dried flower heads and keep the feather-light achenes for the next season. Stored dry, dark and cool, they stay viable for several years.
Companion planting
Good neighbors
carrot family (Apiaceae)
Calendula and Tagetes next to carrots keep the carrot fly away with their scent.
For example Florence fennelCorianderCelery (Stalk Celery)CarawayFennelparsley root and 17 more species in the catalogue
Source: classic companion planting (DACH-Gartenpraxis)
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
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