3 ways to harvest lettuce
There are plenty of reasons to love salad greens; they’re delicious, fast and easy to grow in any size space, and require fewer hours of sunlight to thrive to maturity. This makes them an ideal candidate for winter and early spring gardening when the days are still short and overcast, compared to more sun-hungry cool-season crops.
Luckily for us, lettuces come in a stunning array of beautiful colors, thrilling textures, and small and large sizes, allowing our harvest baskets (and salad bowls) to be full of diversity even in mid-winter!
Did you know baby salad greens only take 30-40 days to grow from seed to harvest?!
Larger lettuce like romaine takes 30-40 days from transplanting to a full grown head.
We also love lettuces because they can be harvested in a variety of ways:
By the whole head
Just the outer leaves
Cut and come again
To harvest by the whole head:
This is an ideal way to harvest firm types of lettuce such as romaine, little gems, or full grown glossy butterheads, which we usually grow from transplants rather than direct seeding. A month or so after transplanting, check if they’re ready by giving the head of lettuce a gentle squeeze - if the center feels firm, it’s ready! Find the base of the lettuce plant at the soil level and cut the main stem with a harvest knife. The bottom leaves can be groomed off if they are yellow, buggy, or damaged. Harvesting the whole head results in a blank spot in the garden, but you can remove the stump and amend the planting hole with some Sure Start fertilizer and immediately transplant a new baby lettuce start in its place. We harvest whole heads at their prime to capture their sweet flavor.
You don’t want to leave lettuce in the ground too long! Overgrown lettuce will start to bolt (meaning they start to flower and go to seed), and once this begins the leaves will get too bitter to enjoy and often lackluster (i.e. dull instead of shiny). A tell-tale sign that lettuce is planning to bolt is the plant will start to grow taller instead of fuller, and you will see the leaves begin to space out as the central stem shoots up. If you notice this happening, harvest it asap! And remember, lettuce is a cool-season crop, so hot weather can initiate early bolting. Lack of water and undernourishment can also cause early bolting.
To harvest just the outside leaves:
This method works for any variety of lettuce, and often we'll harvest outer leaves while waiting for them to reach maturity to harvest the whole head as mentioned above. It works on transplanted and well-spaced out plants, or on more closely seeded lettuces. Find the older leaves that are attached to the outer base of the plant, starting with the lowest first. Using a small harvest knife or scissors, harvest just a few leaves from each head until you have a proper amount for a salad or to slip into your burger.
The lettuce will keep on growing from the center if you harvest leaf-by-leaf. The only downside of harvesting leaf-by-leaf is that as the plants get older, the leaves can get more bitter and they will eventually bolt and need to be re-planted.
Cut and come again tender greens:
The perfect method of growing spring-mix type baby greens! You can buy lettuce seed mixes designed for cut-and-come-again harvesting like this one, but it will work with any old packet of lettuce seeds. We sow cut-and-come-again seed mixes thickly along drip lines in straight rows (think 40+ seeds per foot, in a 2 inch wide line). You can also scatter seeds in a shallow bowl or window box to make a little salad bar. Remember that when planted this close together it will be too crowded for the lettuce to grow full size, but that’s okay, we’re aiming for tender greens!
When you are ready to harvest the baby salad greens, start at one end of the row and simply snip the leaves by the handful with a knife or scissors an inch or two above the soil level, working your way down the row. Leaving the bottom stems of the plants keeps their growth tip intact so they continue to produce more leaves that will be ready to harvest again in around two weeks! You can get 2-3 harvests this way before the plants start to bolt, hence the “cut and come again” moniker.
This same planting and harvesting style can be used for baby-size arugula, mizuna, mustard greens, and even kale and stir-fry mixes! Endless options to keep your salads bright and interesting.
Don’t be afraid to mix and match! We often grow lettuce multiple ways in a single garden - large romaine and crisp little gems left to reach full size, and a few rows of cut-and-come-again greens on constant rotation (seeding new rows every 3-4 weeks for a continuous supply).
