Growing Lettuce Plants in an Organic Garden

How to Grow this Spring Salad Favorite in Containers or the Ground

Apr 6, 2009

Organic gardeners must place lettuce plants on their required list for a spring vegetable garden. Lettuces are easy to grow from seed and do well in container gardens.

Organic gardeners should place lettuce seeds or lettuce transplants on their shopping list each spring, even if they aren’t ready to commit to a full scale vegetable garden. Lettuce takes up little garden space, tolerates some shade, and can be harvested in six weeks or less. Growing lettuce in the home organic garden is a way to ensure one’s food security, as leafy crops are more susceptible to E. coli contamination than fruits and vegetables grown on bushes or vines. Furthermore, the Environmental Working Group considers conventionally grown lettuce as one of the “dirty dozen,” meaning it has high levels of pesticide residue compared to other crops.

Choosing Lettuce Seeds

Gardeners can choose from four types of lettuce to start in the garden. Loose-leaf lettuce is a popular variety for a salad container garden, as gardeners can pluck a few leaves from maturing plants for daily eating throughout the growing season. The heirloom ‘Black-Seeded Simpson’ is favored among gardeners for its tender texture and mild flavor. Loose-leaf lettuce seed blends are popular, as they give the gardener a mix of delicate and strong flavors over a long harvest period.

Harvesting a fine crop of crisphead lettuce from seed is a challenge, but worth it to gardeners unwilling to settle for a watery head of ‘Iceberg’ lettuce in the grocery store. The difficulty in growing crisphead lettuce is to encourage the head to form before hot weather cues the plant to bolt, but using shade cloth or growing heat tolerant varieties like ‘Summer Batavia’ increase the chance of success.

Romaine lettuce combines the ease of loose-leaf varieties with the texture of head lettuce. ‘Little Caesar’ is a petite romaine variety perfect for small gardens or container culture.

Butterhead lettuce yields sweet, buttery leaves over a long season, sometimes even spring through fall. Gardeners unfamiliar with their attributes often overlook these lettuces, but an heirloom variety like ‘Four Seasons’ will win converts with its tasty leaves and ornamental qualities that make it a possibility for the flower garden.

Prepare the Soil for Planting Lettuce

Despite their fragile appearance, lettuce plants are hardy specimens that evolved from tenacious weeds. An important consideration in growing lettuce is achieving fast growth, as most varieties taste best when harvested before the harsh glare of the summer sun brings out bitter flavors. Work compost into the soil in the fall, and set out transplants as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring. Thin the plants ruthlessly after transplanting, as overcrowding encourages diseases.

Lettuce Pests and Diseases

Early spring lettuce isn’t troubled by many pests, but as the season progresses, aphids and caterpillars can be problematic. Blast aphids off lettuce plants with a jet of water, and handpick caterpillars.

The moist growing conditions that lettuce loves can encourage diseases like mildew and rot. Discourage rot by planting lettuce in well-drained soil, by spacing the plants correctly, and by spreading sand under the plants. Watering with a soaker hose prevents mildew by keeping foliage dry, and delivers moisture to the root system where it is needed.

The copyright of the article Growing Lettuce Plants in an Organic Garden in Organic Vegetable Gardens is owned by Jamie McIntosh. Permission to republish Growing Lettuce Plants in an Organic Garden in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.