Lettuce from your own garden delights with its crisp freshness and contains significantly more nutrients than that from the supermarket. Learn how to plant and care for lettuce in your own garden below.

Lettuce can easily be sown directly outdoors

The lettuce in the profile

  • Botanical name: Lactuca sativa var. capitata L.
  • Varieties: about 30 different ones available in Germany
  • Development time: 60 to 120 days
  • Location: full sun
  • Shape: firm, rounded head
  • Leaves: Mostly light green, some varieties reddish
  • Flower: daisy family, aster-like, yellow or violet
  • Hardiness: there are hardy varieties

prefer lettuce

If you want to harvest lettuce as early as possible, you can grow it at home from the end of January. Lettuce germinates best at temperatures between 15 and 20 degrees, so a location on the windowsill of a cooler room is advisable. Do not plant more than two seeds per seed tray so that you can prick them out later. The following are instructions for successful cultivation:

  • Plant the seeds 0.5cm deep in the soil and cover them lightly.
  • Water thoroughly and make sure that the substrate never dries out over the next few days and weeks.
  • Place your seed trays in a bright, about 18°C warm location without drafts.
  • When no more ground frost is to be expected, you can plant your lettuce outdoors.

The ideal location for the lettuce

Lettuce should be in as sunny a position as possible. Not only does it thrive faster and more vigorously in the sun, the nitrate content also drops. Furthermore, lettuce likes a loose, humus-rich soil. Therefore, before planting or sowing, you should dig up the soil and lift a generous portion of compost underneath.

Sow or plant lettuce outdoors

So that the lettuce has enough space to grow, you should keep a planting distance of at least 25cm, for large varieties also 30cm. If you want to save yourself the pricking out, you can also keep this planting distance when sowing directly. Otherwise prick out as soon as the plants are a few centimeters tall. You can find out more about the ideal planting distance and beneficial planting neighbors here.

Cultivating lettuce in the garden

Sufficient watering is particularly important immediately after sowing or planting out; but even later lettuce should be watered regularly. Fertilizing isn't likely to be necessary, but if you feel your lettuce is lacking in nutrients, you can feed it with some compost. If you have grown late varieties, you should protect the lettuce heads from frost with fleece during the colder months.

Pests that threaten lettuce

Snails love lettuce. Unfortunately, this is not a cliché, but reality. If you are struggling with snails in your garden, it may make sense to set up a snail fence or something similar. Cultivation in raised beds also prevents snail infestation.
Aphids also like lettuce. These can be combated in an environmentally friendly way with nettle broth.

harvesting lettuce

Once the lettuce has reached the desired size, it should be harvested. Depending on the variety, the harvest time is 60 to 120 days after sowing. Here you will find an overview of the most important varieties and their sowing and harvesting dates.

Category:

Vegetable garden