About Lettuce

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Transplant seedlings to the outdoors when they are no more than two inches high. Handle them very carefully, since a damaged seedling is vulnerable to the disease gray mold. Do this in late afternoon (and water immediately), or else provide these young, wilt-prone plants with some kind of temporary shading.

In the garden, thin seedlings when they have four leaves. Head or romaine lettuce should stand 12 to 16 inches apart (nine inches for dwarf types). The same applies for leaf lettuce if you intend to pick the outer leaves over a long period, but if you'll be harvesting whole plants, four-inch spacing is adequate. In fact, many leaf lettuces are planted in thick rows or patches and not thinned at all. Thin butterhead lettuce until the plants are three to five inches apart.

Because lettuce has shallow roots, keep the surface soil moist but not soggy. Lettuce is 90% water, however, so try to give the plants three to four gallons of water per square yard weekly in dry weather. To prevent diseases, water in the mornings on sunny days, so that the leaves are dry by evening. In hot weather, the best way to assure surface moisture—and clean leaves—is with a mulch of grass clippings, hay, straw or the like—especially if applied just after a good rain. Lettuce beds are great places to use soaker hoses or watering wands. Lettuce doesn't compete well with weeds, but its surface roots are easily damaged by hoeing; again, weed-suffocating mulch is the answer.

What to Watch For

There are a number of insects and diseases that can attack lettuce, but if you plant in a rich, well-drained soil and keep your lettuce weed-free, you'll seldom encounter serious problems in the lettuce patch. Among the most common pests are cutworms, which chew through the stalks of the main plants. To prevent them altogether, put paper, plastic, cardboard or metal collars around the plants. Lettuce-loving slugs, which nibble on leaf ribs during the night, are best caught and disposed of at that time. If you lay out boards, the slugs will hide under them during the day and can be collected, or you can put out saucers of beer to attract and drown them. Limestone or wood ashes sprinkled over the soil around the plants will also discourage slugs. If aphids become a problem, attack them with hose or garlic sprays, diatomaceous earth, wood ashes or ladybugs.

About the only disease you're likely to see is rot, which turns a plant black and foul smelling. Soggy soil and crowded plants are usually the culprits. Crop rotation is a preventive measure. Gray mold turns areas on lower leaves grayish green or dark brown and is usually caused by damp, overcast weather. The only solution here is to pull up the infected plants and dispose of them well outside of the garden area.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print