A-Z Garden Tips: Loving Lettuce

I love leafy lettuce, especially when it is super-fresh. This year, I discovered a tidy and thrifty trick.

At the grocery store, I purchased a three-pack of romaine lettuce. Each time I trimmed and cleaned a head of the lettuce to make a salad, I saved the base. I stuck toothpicks in it (much like one would with an avocado pit) and placed it in a small glass of water.

This process works without toothpicks too, but the toothpicks seem to prevent the lettuce from bobbing and becoming all-over soggy.

Then I put the glass on the kitchen counter, where it would receive partial sunlight.

Within a few days, each romaine remnant produced new lettuce leaves. The base turned pale and then brown, but the new growth was fresh and healthy. 

As the new lettuce leaves grew, I snipped off a few to add to daily lunch or dinner salads.

After 8-10 days, I transferred each new lettuce plant into a ceramic pot with enriched potting soil.

The timing turned out great, because it is just about time here to put young lettuce plants outside.

Here’s another nifty lettuce planting trick I have learned.

Want to stagger your lettuce harvest this year? Mix a variety of lettuce seeds in a lidded plastic tub. (A clean and empty butter or margarine container works well. Plastic peanut butter jars do too.)

I like to include arugula, bibb, buttercrunch, iceberg, red leaf, romaine, and other sorts of lettuce seeds. Sometimes I toss in some spinach seeds as well.

Garden suppliers also sell pre-assorted lettuce seed packets.

After preparing the vegetable garden bed, plant a partial row of lettuce seeds once a week throughout the early spring. The salad harvest will last a lot longer.

Be sure to save a small supply of lettuce seeds. Lettuce is a cool-weather plant, so it’s handy to plant some in a container for indoor growing during the hottest stretch of summer.

Lettuce photos

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