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How To Grow Lettuce

Lettuce
Lettuce - often the beginner gardener's graveyard. Watch the gardening TV programs, read the glossy gardening magazines - it all seems so easy! Sometimes it is, and sometimes it just isn't. GardenAction explodes the lettuce myth and gives you the information you need to successfully grow lettuce where you live.

Many varieties of lettuce are supremely suited to cooler climates - they are a vegetable for coolconditions, and they need lots of rain. They dislike hot conditions.

There are four basic types, cos (also called romaine), leaf (also called loose-leaf), crisphead, butterhead and stem (also called asparagus lettuce).

LETTUCE GROWING
QUICK GUIDE

Latin Name
Lactuca sativa

Type
Half-hardy annual edible vegetable

Site and Soil
Partial shade. Soil well dug - not acid.

Plant to Harvest Time
11 weeks average

How Many?
3 lettuces per 1 metre (3 foot) row

Where To Grow Lettuce
They are not fussy about soil type as long as it is able to hold water. Their ideal is a soil which is well-drained and well-dug, clay soil which has been broken down with lots of peat is excellent. Do not apply fertiliser or nutrient rich compost to the soil, this will cause rot.

Left - Cos lettuce, came to England in the reign of Charles 1

The key success factor with lettuce is to site them in a position which avoids the full blast of the sun in the middle of the day. Lettuces bolt if the weather becomes too hot or if there is a shortage of water. Some varieties of lettuce are more resistant to bolting than others.

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Bolting occurs where a plant flowers and / or produces seed too early. In the case of vegetables ( e.g. lettuce or onions) it ruins the crop.
Causes are adverse weather conditions, often too hot, or a check in growth of the plant.

Half-hardy plants are those which need protection at the colder times of the year. In the UK, half hardy plants can withstand temperatures down to minus 5C (23F).