Can You Eat Lettuce After It Has Gone To Seed? Is It Poisonous?

on October 11, 2022

Lettuce is a popular plant to grow in the garden at home in your own vegetable garden, however, if you are growing lettuce you will have noticed that it frequently bolts and goes to seed, particularly in warmer weather. So once the lettuce has gone to seed can you still eat it? Is it safe to eat?

Lettuce that has gone to seed is edible and you can eat it though the reality is that it will not taste very nice because it becomes bitter and largely unpalatable. Typically, this bitter flavor will start to appear in the lettuce even before it produces a flower stalk and is obviously bolting. So it is advisable to taste any lettuce that you pick from the garden to ensure that it is still of good quality.

However, it is important to note that generally, those lettuces that are red in color tend to be naturally more bitter in flavor so it is a good idea to try those leaves early.on when you are growing them to make sure you know what the plant is supposed to taste like.

How To Stop Lettuce From Bolting

When growing lettuce at home it is common to have problems with the lettuce plants bolting very rapidly. So what can you do to prevent this?

The bolting of lettuce is part of the natural life cycle of the lettuce plant so no matter what you do it will bolt at some point, however, the early onset of the production of flowers and then seeds more commonly occurs in warmer weather.

The reason for this is that the plant can become stressed very easily and in response to this will begin to produce flowers and then seeds. As part of this process, the plant produces compounds within the leaves that make the plants bitter and unpalatable.

To stop this process or at the very least slow it down there are a couple of basic things that you can do which will extend the usable life of the plant. The first consideration is the positioning of the plant which can help to slow down the bolting process.

It is traditional for most gardening books and websites to recommend that all vegetables are planted out in full sun locations, however, in the case of lettuce, it is advisable to plant at least a portion of your lettuce plants in relatively shady locations.

Plants that are located in shady locations will have a tendency to grow slower in these conditions and therefore are less likely to bolt. This is particularly important in areas that have hot dry summers.

The second important thing to do is to ensure that you water the plants constantly, particularly in warmer weather to ensure that they have a good supply of moisture and do not become stressed in any way. To help retain this moisture it is a good idea to apply a layer of mulch that is 2 to 4 inches thick.

How To Maintain A Constant Supply Of Lettuce At Home?

Maintaining a constant supply of lettuce throughout the year is quite challenging because of the tendency of lettuce to bolt, however, there are a couple of rules that you can apply which will help to reduce the chances of having a supply gap.

The first and most important thing to do is ensure that you sow the seeds frequently to ensure that you have multiple batches of lettuce of different ages at any one point in time throughout the season. This is particularly important in the summer months when plants bolt relatively easily.

To increase the chances of maintaining a constant supply it is best to sow small amounts of seeds frequently at least every two weeks at the peak of summer. However, that rate can be reduced significantly as the weather cools down and typically we recommend planting seeds every 4 weeks or so.

The second useful thing to do is to ensure that you grow a wide range of different lettuce varieties as some plants can mature faster than others and this will give you an increased chance of having lettuce that is not bitter. The easiest way to do this is to purchase a packet of seeds that has a mixture of varieties in it already rather than purchasing 5 or 6 different individual varieties. If you need to purchase seeds, I recommend that you visit seeds now as they have quite a wide range of heirloom vegetables that are ideal for this sort of purpose.

The third measure that is also helpful in ensuring that you get the most out of your plants and minimize the age of the leaves on the plant is to pick the outer leaves regularly which are the oldest leaves on the plant.

In addition to helping to maintain the health of the plant, it is also an extremely effective way to get multiple harvests from the plant because when you harvest like this you leave the innermost leaves on the plant to continue to grow on. As these leaves are undisturbed the plant generally recovers much faster allowing more frequent harvest to occur.

The final thing that we highly recommend that you do is ensure that as soon as the lettuce turns bitter remove it and plant new seedlings to ensure that the next harvest is coming up as quickly as possible.

What To Do With Lettuce That Has Bolted?

It is inevitable that you will get lettuce plants bolted so the big question is what can you do with them. There are only a couple of possible uses for lettuce plants that have bolted. The first is to simply throw them on the compost heap or into a worm farm to encourage the future fertility of your garden soil.

The second option is to feed the plants to your chickens as they will love to eat them even if you do not. And the third option is to simply let the plants run to seed, if you have enough space in your garden, and harvest the seedlings. Apart from these three things there really isn’t much else you can do with these plants.

How To Sow And Transplant Lettuce Plants Fast

Given that you will need to sow lettuce seeds extremely regularly it is important to ensure that you spend as little time as possible completing this task as it is quite repetitive. However, we have a few tips which we have picked up over the years that will provide you with an extremely effective way to get your seeds in and your seedlings out in the garden with a minimum fuss and effort.

The first thing that we recommend is that you plant lettuce seeds in seed trays simply because it is easy to control the climatic conditions and therefore maximize the growth of the seedlings. When planting in seed trays it is important to use an open tray that does not have individual modular cells as this will slow down the process of planting the seeds and transplanting the seedlings when they are ready.

The quickest way to do this is to firm a good quality seed raising mix into the seed tray and create a flat level surface within the seed tray. The seeds should then be sprinkled thinly in rows approximately 2 inches apart and then left to germinate. There is no need to bury the seeds or or press them into the soil as long as the soil itself remains moist they will germinate.

To minimize the disturbance of the rows that you have just created, it is best to water the seeds from under the seed tray by dipping it in water rather than watering from above as there is a good chance that you will move the seeds around on the surface of the soil.

The seedling will take approximately 7 days to come up in most cases and will usually need to spend somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks in the seed tray before the seedlings are large enough to plant out into the garden. During this period it is important to ensure that the soil remains moist so that seedlings have all the nutrients and water that they need.

Once the seedlings have reached the point where they are large enough to plant out in the garden the quickest and easiest way to plant them is to pick up the entire row using a trowel and place it into a pre-prepared furrow in the garden bed. The furrow should typically be approximately 2 inches wide and about an inch deep.

The row can be scooped in one or two pieces and laid into these furrows and the soil can be pushed around the plants which will mean that it will take less than a couple of minutes to plant the lettuce seedlings into the garden minimizing your time and effort.