[wales1000]

Hi I just wanted to check, I am growing little gem lettuces and they are pretty much fully grown, but how long roughly can you keep them in the ground before they will die off?  I have about twenty of them and have been picking leaves off them, but I just wondered how long they will survive in the ground fully grown?

Thanks!

[DD.]

If they are full grown, I'd harvest them, not pick leaves off the outside. The best part of a Little Gem is in the middle & this will go to waste if they run to seed.

[wales1000]

If they are full grown, I'd harvest them, not pick leaves off the outside. The best part of a Little Gem is in the middle & this will go to waste if they run to seed.

thanks for your help and I'll do that with the inner leaves, but when you say they run to seed, what does that actually mean?  sorry I am thicko, as I am pretty new to growing veg

[DD.]

A flower stem will appear from the centre of the lettuce. At this time you'll lose your nice crisp heart.

[Yorkie]

No question too silly - I'm sure someone else is wishing they'd asked too  

Generalising here, but all plants aim to reproduce.  Many annual plants, such as most veggies, do this by producing seed.  In lettuces they do this by producing a flower spike from the centre of the plant.  At this point the remaining lettuce leaves can become bitter and the plant is past its best.  Hence DD's advice to eat them before they move onto the next part of their growing cycle.

For most other veggies, e.g. beans, courgettes, you should regularly pick the veggies rather than leave them on the plant.  If you leave them on, the plant focuses on putting energy into the seeds - and therefore thinks that it has performed its purpose in life and need not produce any more veggies.  If you pick the veggies, there are no seeds left on the plant, so it has to produce more seeds i.e. more veggies.

I got a bit convoluted there  :blink:  Hope some of it made sense  

[celjaci]

Litle Gem is probably my favourite lettuce but unless I had a big BBQ doubt I could munch through 20 of them before they went to seed.
The trick with lettuce is to sow little and often, just a few seeds every 10 days. That way you always have fresh lettuce coming along. We keep sowing right up to Sept then start again in Feb that way we have lettuce for a big part of the year and rocket, land cress and lambs lettuce fill the gap in mid-winter

[DD.]

My system for sucessive sowing & planting, which works for me is firstly to start off a few seed - just a small pinch in a plant pot. (Early in the year this will be in the greenhouse, but at this time of year it's outside).

When big enough prick these out into seed trays ansd grow on. At the same time sow some more seed. Do NOT put this off, if you're like me, you'll forget. Doing this is a good habit!

When second lot of seed are ready for pricking out, repeat the above step, but with the addition of planting the first load of plants out.

If you get into this routine, you'll have letttuce all season and won't have to make notes to remind yourself to sow more. You don't need to sow many at a time & with careful storage  packet of seed will last years.

[Kristen]

Do you reuse the compost in the "seed sowing pot" each time?

I've been doing that in the 1/4 trays that fit my propagator this year - had an earlier melon seed germinate amongst my lettuces - but didn't know which variety it was

I figure the seeds have only been in the seed compost a week or two, not likely to have got disease already ... but other folk may disagree?

[DD.]

Actually I do.

Having pricked out the lettuce, I just top the pot up with a small amount of compost & off we go again. The seedlings don't need much in the way of nutrients to grow to pricking out size.

Larger amounts of barely used compost I grow radish in - yes - cat litter trays!

[gillie]

Have you tried Charles Dowding's lettuce growing method  as described in the RHS's magazine?

You sow very few loose leaf lettuce seeds in modules, single them, plant them out a good way apart and let them grow to a tolerable size.  Then you start picking one leaf off each plant every couple of days or so.  Manky or excess leaves get composted.

He says he can keep a lettuce plant cropping for three months before it bolts.  Last year I managed two months.  At the moment I am still cropping my original Spring greenhouse sowing but think it is about time I started some more.  I grew four plants each of Bergamo (green and frilly) and Amorina (pinkish tips) which gives us quite enough green salad.

Cheers,

Gillie

[DD.]

I prefer me crunchy, hearty lettuce!

[Kristen]

"Larger amounts of barely used compost I grow radish in - yes - cat litter trays!"

I used some of my spent J.I. seed sowing compost to add an inch or so to the top of my Richy Paper Pots - the lower part being multi-purpose compost - for Parsnips and the like.  Made it relatively easy to have a moist surface to encourage the Parsnip seeds to germinate - although, having said that, germination was as erratic as ever - might have been even worse but for that perhaps?!

[DD.]

I'll not go down the parsnip germination line, lest folk think I'm cocky!

[gillie]

"I prefer me crunchy, hearty lettuce!"

I don't like floppy lettuces either, but these varieties crunch ok.  I also have 7 cos in for hearty occasions, but a whole lettuce is usually far too much for us.

Cheers,

Gillie

[wales1000]

the reason why I have so many is as I hadnt grown them before I put a lot of seeds in in case loads didn't grow through, but then twenty or so have grown well.  My guinea pigs will eat a fair few, as one whole lettuce does the whole lot, but I might start pulling them the biggest ones out now then, so we can eat them and maybe plant a few more seeds in pots which will take a another few months to grow fully.  If I get a picture maybe someone could tell me whether I am actually right that they are fully grown?  thanks.