Lettuce harvest question

[Him]

Hi - for the first time I am this year growing lettuce in my garden. I bought some head lettuce plants and all is ok. I also bought some of what I thought were leaf lettuce plants but now I am not sure. As a kid I remember my Dad growing leaf lettuce in a row and just snipping it off to collect it and it grew back ... that is what I was after.

What I got is called Salad Bowl ... some are red and some are green color. How do I harvest these? Do they form a head and then get cut and done or can I cut the leaves and they grow back?

Thanks for your ideas and help.

[Chris Hamel]

I don't grow head lettuce, but I do exactly what you're describing with Romaine and Grand Rapids -- snip what I need and let the plant keep growing. It doesn't grow back, per se, but it kind of grows on a spine, and the plant will keep growing and producing more leaves if you do this.

In the end, it may or may not yield any more lettuce than if I had left the plants alone, but it does make a nice way to harvest fresh lettuce in the quantities you need. Not a lot of waste, and always fresh.

By the way, depending on how serious you are (I am not at all), when the lettuce turns bitter I let the plants keep growing. They grow very tall and bolt in somewhat spectactular fashion. This year, the seeds that yielded resulted from last year's plants grew into four new lettuce plants that materialized completely on their own. Nature is amazing.

Good luck. Chris

[Chris Hamel]

I don't grow head lettuce, but I do exactly what you're describing with Romaine and Grand Rapids -- snip what I need and let the plant keep growing. It doesn't grow back, per se, but it kind of grows on a spine, and the plant will keep growing and producing more leaves if you do this.

In the end, it may or may not yield any more lettuce than if I had left the plants alone, but it does make a nice way to harvest fresh lettuce in the quantities you need. Not a lot of waste, and always fresh.

By the way, depending on how serious you are (I am not at all), when the lettuce turns bitter I let the plants keep growing. They grow very tall and bolt in somewhat spectactular fashion. This year, the seeds that yielded resulted from last year's plants grew into four new lettuce plants that materialized completely on their own. Nature is amazing.

Good luck. Chris

[Chris Hamel]

I don't grow head lettuce, but I do exactly what you're describing with Romaine and Grand Rapids -- snip what I need and let the plant keep growing. It doesn't grow back, per se, but it kind of grows on a spine, and the plant will keep growing and producing more leaves if you do this.

In the end, it may or may not yield any more lettuce than if I had left the plants alone, but it does make a nice way to harvest fresh lettuce in the quantities you need. Not a lot of waste, and always fresh.

By the way, depending on how serious you are (I am not at all), when the lettuce turns bitter I let the plants keep growing. They grow very tall and bolt in somewhat spectactular fashion. This year, the seeds that yielded resulted from last year's plants grew into four new lettuce plants that materialized completely on their own. Nature is amazing.

Good luck. Chris

[Chris Hamel]

Sorry for the multiple messages... Google groups told me all three times that the message did not go through. I guess it did.

[Dave]

Try a news reader and subscribe to the news servers you're addressing. Dave

[Dave]

Leaf lettuce takes about 2 months from germination to be ready for gleaning their leaves. 2 more months of leaf production. After that, the plant concentrates on reproduction by flowering and seeding. Replacement of leaves rapidly declines during that stage. Dave

[R M. Watkin]

Hi All,

you can cut the leaves and they will grow again, provided you do not go mad and cut to much in one go. hope this helps you.

Richard M. Watkin.