Romaine lettuce is one of the most popular lettuces in the world and the sometimes referred to as cos lettuce in some countries such as Australia. These lettuces are typically used in a wide range of salads and are specifically known for being used in a caesar salad. However, if you are growing the lettuce at home you may be wondering how many times can you harvest Romaine lettuce.
Romaine lettuce can be harvested several times over a few weeks by treating it as a cut and come again lettuce. By carefully stripping the outer leaves from each plant as they develop rather than removing the entire head you can harvest every week or so for around 3 to 4 weeks before the plant goes bitter.
The other alternative is to completely move the head as they do the commercial lettuces, however, if you do this you may get a second lettuce growing around two months later from the same root system, however, you run the risk of the second lettuce being bitter.
Lettuces are renowned for going bitter in hot weather so if you are growing lettuce at home you need to be absolutely ruthless with removing the lettuce as soon as it turns bitter which typically occurs when the plant bolts. However, it is common for the plant to turn bitter before there are any signs of it bolting. It is therefore important that you taste the lettuce as you pick it to ensure that you are bringing good quality leaves inside.
How To Maintain A Continuous Harvest Year Round
Having lettuce available year round whether it is Romaine lettuce or another variety can be challenging particularly in summer when the weather is relatively hot. The reason for this is because the plants, in hot dry conditions, will readily run to seed which means that lettuce does not last very long at all.
However, there are several strategies that you can undertake which will increase your chances of not having a supply gap somewhere during the summer period.
The first method that I recommend is ensuring that you sow lettuce very regularly as this will ensure that you always have a new crop coming up. The method that I most commonly use is to sow every 2 weeks or so at the height of Summer as this will always ensure that you have some lettuce leaves available even if they bolt really quickly.
The second strategy that I use is to ensure that I plant seedlings crops in both full sun and shady areas in the summer period as this will ensure that the rate of growth differs spreading the harvest period. Additionally, planting lettuce in a shady position will also reduce the potential for the lettuce seeds to bolt.
The third strategy is to sow a range of different lettuces in the garden at any one time because they mature at different rates. The simplest and easiest way to do this without overcomplicating your planning in the garden is to purchase a packet of mixed lettuce seeds which has a range of different varieties in the packet.
Sowing these seeds will ensure that you have at least water five different varieties in your garden at any one time which again will increase your chances of having at least some lettuce that has not gone bitter yet.
If you need to purchase seeds we recommend you visit seeds now as they are seed specialists that have a wide range of unusual heirloom varieties which will allow you to collect the seeds for the following year. To check out their range click on the link below.
The fourth strategy that we use to maximize the harvest is to carefully pick only the outer leaves of each lettuce plant and leave the younger leaves to grow on. The advantage of doing this rather than using a pair of scissors to cut the top off the lettuce is that there are still lettuce leaves on the plant that are completely undisturbed and will therefore continue to grow quicker allowing the plants to recover more quickly.
How To Grow Lettuce
Lettuce is an extremely easy plant to grow and is best grown from seed rather than purchasing seedlings from the garden center which are relatively expensive. To minimize the volume of work that is associated with growing lettuce the easiest way is to grow them in flat open trays.
The lettuce seeds should be sown in rows approximately 2 inches apart which in most cases will allow you to get 4 to 5 rows in a single seed tray. Rows are recommended because it makes the transplanting of lettuce very quick and easy because you can pick up an entire row using a trowel and place it into a farrow in the garden.
To start the seeds off in the seed tray fill it with good quality seed raising mix and then firm it down into the seed tray which will make it easier to pick up the seedlings when you need to transplant them into the garden.
When sowing seeds they should be sown relatively thinly onto the surface, they do not need to be buried as lettuce seeds need light to germinate. As long as they are in contact with the soil they will germinate quickly and plants typically will appear 7 days after sowing, however, that is dependent upon the specific temperature in which the seeds are grown.
Once the seeds have been sown you need to ensure that the soil in the seed tray remains moist. To water the seedlings we recommend placing them into a tray seed with water in it and allowing the soil to absorb the water rather than watering from above.
The reason for this is that when you water from above it is very likely that you are going to disturb the small seeds on the surface of the seed tray.
Once the seedlings have been sown they typically need to spend anywhere between 4 and 6 weeks in a seed tray before being planted out into the garden. The first lettuce seed sowing should typically be done around 4 weeks prior to the last frost as this will ensure that you have lettuce seedlings ready to go as soon as the weather is starting to warm up.
Transplanting Lettuce Seedlings Into The Garden
As mentioned earlier in the article the easiest way to transplant seedlings in the garden is to create a farrow in the garden bed that is approximately 2 to 3 inches deep and 2 to 3 inches wide. A garden trowel can then be used to pick up small sections of the rows and place them directly into the furrows at which point you can push soil around the seedlings and then water them in well.
In terms of growing conditions, it is recommended that you plant some seedlings in full sun and some in the shade as mentioned earlier in the article. In terms of soil conditions, lettuce plants are generally fairly forgiving but like most vegetables, they do prefer rich, moist, and free-draining soil with plenty of nutrients in it.
As lettuce leaves are highly susceptible to attack from slugs and snails it is recommended that you sprinkle snail bait around the plants to protect them. The snail bait should typically be applied after a thick layer of mulch has been put around the seedlings to help retain moisture.
Harvesting Lettuce Leaves
Lettuce leaves can be harvested at any stage once the plant is big enough. As mentioned earlier in the article it is far better to strip the outer leaves from the plant and leave the inner leaves to continue to grow as this will ensure that the plant can recover in a week or so allowing additional harvest to be completed.
The key thing to ensuring that you have a continuous supply is to be absolutely ruthless when the plant turns bitter as you can no longer eat the leaves. As soon as this occurs you should be removing the plant and replacing it with new lettuce plants.
The only exception to this would be when you are wanting to allow the plant to bolt and then collect the lettuce seeds afterward which is extremely easy to do.
To get lettuce seeds from your plant allow it to flower and wait until the flower heads have started to dry out. At this point, you will see some of the seeds beginning to fall to the ground. That is the ideal time to harvest the seeds for next year.
The easiest way to do this is to remove the entire plant and then placed the head in a paper bag and shake it around which will allow the seeds to be collected quickly and easily without fuss. The seedlings can then be put in a dry location until such time as you are ready to plant them out into the garden again.
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