How to Grow Lettuce
Instruction & Advice for Growing Lettuce Plants
in Your Vegetable Garden
| Nutrition | Watering Instructions | Planting |
| Climate | Fertilizing Instructions | Harvesting |
| Soil | Challenges | Tips |
Gardening a lettuce crop is most effective during your area's cool seasons (this vegetable tends to go to seed and get bitter in hot temperatures). However, there are varieties out now that can tolerate warmer temperatures.
This is a good vegetable for container gardening, particularly if using smaller leaf-lettuce type varieties. For more information, review: container gardening.
Lettuce can be a good companion to many garden vegetables. For more information, review the companion planting guide.
Leaf lettuce varieties seem to be easier to grow than head lettuce.
Nutrition Information: (back to top)
Lettuce provides: Dietary Fiber, Chromium, Manganese, Potassium, Vitamin C, A, K, Copper, Phosphorus, Iron, Riboflavin, Calcium, Magnesium, Thiamin, Folate
Climate & Growing Conditions: (back to top)
Depending upon the variety you select, lettuce can be grown in nearly all gardening climates, year round.
Lettuce will grow in either sun or partial shade. However, it doesn't take hot locations very well. In most climates, this vegetable will grow best in the early spring or fall.
Gardening Advice Tip: If you have a crop growing during dry, hot weather, make sure you water regularly, and try to provide some shade (to offer a break from the heat). Mulching around the plants may help also.
How to Prepare the Garden Soil: (back to top)
Prepar the garden bed, so that it's soil pH is at least 6.0 and no more than 7.0 (it doesn't grow well in alkaline soils). (Instructions: How to test your garden soil pH level.) Mix in compost and well-rotted manure several weeks before planting.
Lettuce garden beds need to drain well. While they require regular watering, soggy soil invites all kinds of problems for your crop. Also, keep this vegetable's bed weed free. Mulching around the lettuce plants will help keep the weeds at bay (and save you time!). Plus, mulch helps to keep the roots cool.
How to Plant Lettuce: (back to top)
Plant lettuce year round. Cooler seasons are optimal. In warmer gardening climates, plant in part shade.
Prepare your lettuce garden bed by digging in fertilizer with the soil, one week prior to planting.
Lettuce doesn't transplant well, so plant the seed directly into your prepared garden bed. Make your rows 1 foot apart, and cover the seed with a very thin (1/4") layer of light garden (or seed starting) soil. Keep the soil moist.
Once the plants have reached a height of 3” tall, thin them. Overcrowding stunts this vegetable's growth. Use the thinned plants as tender and tasty accents to your next salad!
Lettuce grows quickly and doesn't keep particularly well. To extend your harvest, plant a new crop every two weeks (except during extreme hot weather months).
Gardening Advice Tip: Don't leave mature lettuce plants in your garden. Pick them (give them away to your friends/neighbors, to the local food pantry, or compost them). If you leave them in the ground past maturity, they can invite plant diseases that can affect the rest of your lettuce crops.
How to Water: (back to top)
Keep the plants evenly moist (but not soggy). If you water too much, your crop may experience fungal diseases. If you don’t water enough, they won't grow well, the plant may bolt too early, and the taste will be bitter.
How to Fertilize: (back to top)
During the growing cycle, you may apply periodic doses of fertilizer to the ground in the garden bed. Be careful, however, not to let the fertilizer touch the leaves. If it does, wash it off immediately, or it will burn the lettuce plant.
Gardening Challenges: (back to top)
If you grow your lettuce crop so that it's well spaced (not crowded) and you provide them with plenty of sunshine, you should have few problems.
You may find that aphids are enjoying your crop. They are troublesome in that they can slow plant growth.
Lettuce can be prone to plant diseases like downy mildew and leaf spot.
Gardening Advice Tip: Practice good vegetable gardening by rotating your crops within your garden space with each new season. This will prevent many plant diseases.
How to Harvest Lettuce: (back to top)
Lettuce generally takes about 10 weeks to reach maturity. Loose leaf lettuce is usually harvested a few leaves at a time (as needed), with the mature outer leaves being snapped off when needed. (This permits your plant to keep growing whereas if you pick the inner leaves, that will slow or stop growth.)
How to Extend your Lettuce harvest (back to top)
Extend your harvest with the use of cold frames. Use the cold frames to sow your first lettuce crop earlier in the spring. You can also use the cold frames to keep your late lettuce crop growing into the fall/winter. Cold frames protect your plants from frost, and provide a mini-greenhouse environment, as long as there are no significant periods of freezing temperatures.
Gardening Advice Tips (back to top)
Have a helpful gardening tip (or even a fun story) to share about your lettuce growing experience? Share it with us at: gardeningtips@howtogardenadvice.com
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