Don’t let lettuce fool you
LETTUCE may seem like the most common-or-garden of salad leaves but it’s actually one of the trickier ones to grow well. To ensure a constant supply, the trick is to sow little and often, and to grow a range of varieties including traditional, round butterhead types, tall upright cos and mini cos, and loose-leaf cut-and-come-again kinds. For more adventurous salads, try exotic red, frilly or oak-leaved lettuces.
SITE AND SOIL PREPARATION
Lettuce is one of the few kitchen garden crops that tolerates light shade. In fact, if grown in too sunny a spot in midsummer, plants will soon “bolt” or run to seed.
It needs rich, fertile soil that holds moisture so work in plenty of well-rotted organic matter in advance.To prepare for sowing or planting, remove any weeds, fork the ground over then sprinkle with a handful each of pelleted poultry manure and general-purpose fertiliser such as blood, fish and bone. Finally, rake the soil to a fine tilth (like cake crumbs).
SOWING SEEDS
Using the tip of a cane or the corner of a garden rake or hoe, make a “drill” or shallow groove in the soil about half an inch deep.
Sprinkle seed sparingly along the drill, a pinch at a time, leaving seeds roughly a quarter of an inch apart.
After sowing, cover the seeds to roughly their own depth with sifted garden soil. If your soil is heavy clay, sprinkle horticultural vermiculite over the seeds instead – this gives far better germination and early growth of seedlings. Label the row and water thoroughly, using a watering can with a rose.
PLANTING OUT
If you have bought or raised early lettuce plants in small individual pots under cover, you’ll need to harden them off. Stand the plants outside on fine days, returning them to a cold frame, unheated conservatory, porch or greenhouse overnight, for a week or 10 days before planting out.
Prepare the ground as for sowing seeds then use a trowel to make a series of small planting holes along your row, as deep as the pots and spaced six to 12 inches apart (depending on the size of the variety).
Upturn plastic pots or cells carefully into the palm of one hand and tap firmly to remove the plants with their root balls intact. Sit each root ball in place, add topsoil up to the neck of the plant – just below the lowest leaves – then firm lightly.
If plants have been raised in paper or peat pots, don’t try to remove them.
Moisten the pot and plant the whole thing – the roots will grow through the sides. Finally, label and water as before.
AFTERCARE
Watering: lettuce is notorious for bolting if plants get dry. Combat this by growing in rich soil with plenty of organic matter and water them if there’s no regular rain.
Feeding: rich, fertile, humus-rich soil and a pre-sowing/pre-planting fertiliser should be enough but you can top up nutrients when the plants are half-grown by applying diluted liquid feed or sprinkling poultry manure pellets between the rows and watering well in.
For a quick boost choose a foliar feed (liquid fertiliser applied through the leaves). Use a fine rose on a watering can and sprinkle evenly all over the plants in early evening so the sun won’t scorch the leaves.
Pests: protect from slugs and snails; greenfly may be a problem in summer.
BRING IN THE HARVEST
To avoid gluts, cut the bigger lettuces almost before they are ready – don’t wait for the whole row to “heart-up”.
Cut off hearting varieties at the very base of the plant, then trim off any damaged outer leaves.
For cut-and-come-again varieties, pick a few individual leaves little and often, leaving the rest of the plant to keep growing. Repeat sowings and plantings.
After a row of lettuce has been cut, clear the remains away, fork the soil over, sprinkle on another dressing of general fertiliser plus some poultry manure pellets, rake in and sow or plant a fresh row as before.
For good continuity of cropping, sow only a short row at a time but sow the next row when the first row is about one third grown (if you use a lot of lettuce, sow every three weeks). That way you’ll always have several rows at different stages of growth.