Grow Great Lettuce

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Good greens make great salad. If you’re growing lettuce this year, follow our easy gardening advice and you’ll have salads galore! PHOTO: ROGER DOIRON

Imagine that extraterrestrials have invaded and commandeered earthlings’ home gardens in order to produce energy for their fleet of veggie-powered flying saucers. Armed with hoes and digging forks and with determination in their eyes, gardeners take to the streets. To quell the insurrection, the aliens announce they will allow gardeners to grow one vegetable for their own consumption. Which crop would you choose? For me, the choice would be as easy as this scenario is far-fetched: lettuce.

You could make a good case for growing other things instead: a highly caloric crop such as potatoes, a more flavorful one such as tomatoes, or a better keeper such as carrots. I recommend growing lettuce because it’s easy, reliable, requires little space and enjoys a long growing season, allowing for multiple and continuous harvests. Lettuce is also one of the best vegetables to grow because it offers a nice mix of nutrients in a compact package, including iron, folate, and vitamins A and C. It’s for all these reasons that new gardeners should choose growing lettuce as their first step in their journey to delicious, homegrown self-reliance. For a chart with lettuce variety details, see Great Lettuce Varieties.

Lettuce Types

While “iceberg” is the bland poster child for store-bought lettuce, it’s part of a larger, diverse and better-looking family than people realize. Gardeners can choose from hundreds of varieties, all falling into six types of lettuce. (See “Six Lettuce Types: Which Ones Will You Try?” below.)

For beginners, I recommend starting with loose-leaf lettuce varieties, also known as “cut and come again” lettuces (meaning you can cut a harvest, then harvest again in a few weeks). These varieties are not only the easiest to grow, but they come in many seed mixes, offering a balance of colors, textures and flavors.

To add some extra color and zing to your salad bowl, I suggest planting a row of spicy mesclun mix for every row of lettuce you grow. Most seed companies offer mesclun mixes of arugulas, kales and mustard greens, which, with the addition of some cheese, chopped walnuts and a couple of edible flowers, can turn a ho-hum salad side dish into a memorable main course.

Preparing to Plant

As with any crop, delicious salad greens start with the soil. Lettuce does best in sandy loam soil with a high level of moisture-retaining organic matter, but don’t be discouraged if you don’t have those conditions. Lettuce grows all around the world in all types of climates and soils, including your own.

There’s no ideal climate for all lettuce types, but most grow best in cool weather. Salad greens can be planted as soon as you can work the soil, which, here in Maine, is early to midspring. Most lettuce varieties germinate well in the range of 40 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, making them an excellent spring and fall crop for gardeners in temperate areas.