Growing Salad Greens – Gardening Guide

Easy to Grow Leaf Lettuce

“Give me a honeymoon salad,” a corn-fed neighbor of mine would always say (despite groans from fellow diners). “Lettuce alone.”

Fancier salad fixings come and go, but lettuce remains a staple. And while all types are fairly easy to grow, romaine, Boston, and iceberg take time to fold into nice full heads. Leaf lettuce, by contrast, is always the first to be ready, many weeks before heading varieties. Thriving in cool weather, it’s planted as the ground warms in mid-April, and grows rapidly. With luck (i.e., cooperative weather), you’ll be picking leaves by the May long weekend—about a month from seed to the salad bowl.

You just need to provide decent soil in full sun or dappled shade, a couple of centimeters of compost, a quick dig to stir and mix, and a leveling rake—then you’re ready to sow. Leaf lettuce can be grown in either crowded rows or in a nicely spaced one (which may start as a crowded row). For the first method, sow seeds six to 12 millimeters deep and about three centimeters apart, either in one long row or (better) a few shorter ones running parallel to each other, 15 centimeters apart, across a bed. Left unthinned, plants will produce lots of small leaves that can be plucked by hand or cut with scissors over a month or more, as new leaves sprout from plant centers. Both age and heat push lettuce plants to seed—signifying the end of the harvest—so it’s a good idea to sow a couple of new rows every 10 days for a fresh supply.

Given Room

that is, thinned to 20 centimeters apart—leaf lettuce responds beautifully, expanding into a full cone-shaped bunch. For steady, succulent growth, water lettuce thoroughly every three or four days. Around week three, feed with diluted fish emulsion, showering the patch afterward to wash off any residue.

Disease in the Lettuce Patch Is Rare in Growing Salad Greens

I haven’t seen any in a mine in three decades. But slugs and earwigs may show up. While earwigs are more of a nuisance than a threat, lodging in the plant’s center and giving you a nasty surprise at the sink, slugs are slow, steady eaters that can do damage to plants, especially in wet weather. Early plantings often escape, as slugs are few and small at that time; later on, a close collar of sharp, gritty sand or ground eggshells should deter them. Beer works, too: small containers of (cheap) brew sunk to their rims in the soil attract and drown slugs.

While not as crisp as romaine or as buttery soft as Boston, leaf lettuce is as tasty as any other lettuce, easier to grow than most, and always first to the table.

How to Get an Early Crop and Cultivars  

How to Enjoy an Earlier Crop

Start leaf lettuce seeds indoors a month before your region’s first frost-free date, sowing two or three seeds in a six- to the eight-centimeter pot, thinning to one seedling; a dozen plants take up little room in a sunny window or under lights. After a couple of days of gradual exposure to outdoor conditions, set three-week-old seedlings in the garden 20 centimeters apart. For a fancier patch (a kind of marbling effect), we always plant alternating seedlings of red and green leaf lettuces. A sheet of floating row cover provides extra warmth for uninterrupted growth. As plants grow, you can pluck the outer leaves, a few from each plant every other day or so for an early harvest; full-size bunches will still be produced.

Leaf Lettuce Cultivars to Try

While all leaf lettuces have a loose, open habit, varieties vary dramatically in color and leaf shape—experimenting is part of the fun. To ensure you’re planting leaf, rather than the head, lettuce, choose from these types: deer tongue, Grand Rapids, Lolla Rossa, oakleaf, Simpson, and salad bowl.

‘Black-Seeded Simpson’

For instance (a popular older variety whose baby leaves are ready in 40 days, maturing in 60), has abundant pale green, lightly crumpled, juicy leaves; these large, upright plants grow just about anywhere and tolerate heat, drought, and frost.

In contrast, Lollo Rossa types are tightly curled, very frilly, and attractive on the plate; examples include the light green ‘Lollo Bionda’ and deep red ‘Darkness’.

Seldom seen in markets, oakleaf and deer tongue lettuces are plainer and flatter, growing into low-spreading rosettes; heirloom choices include ‘Royal Oakleaf’ (light green), ‘Red Deer Tongue’ and ‘Amish Deer Tongue’, with a timing (as with almost all leaf lettuces) of under a month for baby leaves and around 55 days for full plants.

The long, indented leaves of the French ‘Brunia’ are olive green tipped with bronze-red. An All-America Selection winner in 1952, ‘Salad Bowl’ is soft-textured and medium green; and ‘Red Salad Bowl’ is just that.

Widely available ‘Grand Rapids’, ‘Simpson Elite’ (both green) and ‘Red Sails’ are the kinds of leaf lettuces you see at the supermarket—but better a few steps from garden to kitchen than the long distance in a truck.