Tips for Growing Your Own Lettuce

Growing vegetables in your own garden is a fun and satisfying experience. You can grow your own nutritious organic vegetables and save a good bit of money. It is also a good way to get kids interested in gardening and botany.

If you are looking for vegetable gardening ideas, lettuce should be amongst the top on your list. Lettuce is very easy to cultivate in your garden or in containers and it does not take much space. It grows very well in cool surroundings. Unlike many other vegetables, it is ideal for late frost and fall plantation. It has good resistance to moderate frost although freezing temperatures can kill a lettuce crop. And it is amongst the first vegetables you can harvest - in 60 to 80 days from seeding or transplanting, you can have a fresh salad from your lettuce harvest!

There are 4 major types of lettuce. Choose the variety for your garden based on their characteristics.

• Romaine lettuce is a flavorful variety frequently used in salads. It has tall, green, rigid and clustered leaves.

• Leaf lettuce is a heat tolerant variety which grows easily. You can harvest a few leaves multiple times throughout the plant's lifetime. It comes in different colors.

• Butterhead lettuce has small, tender leaves with butter like flavor. It comes in many colors.

• Crisphead lettuce like Iceberg comes with light green, crunchy leaves packed densely. It can be harvested only once during it lifecycle.

Here are some tips for growing your own lettuce.

• The last 2-3 weeks of your frosty winter months and middle of fall are the best times to plant lettuce. You can begin cultivation with lettuce seeds or seedlings.

• Lettuce requires only about 5-6 hours of sunlight every day. So pick a suitable spot in your garden or place your container appropriately for proper exposure to sunlight.

• First prepare the soil in your garden bed. It must be loose, well-aerated and well-draining. Add plenty of organic compost to the soil to ensure that it is not acidic. You can also add organic fertilizers to the soil. Once fertilized, your lettuce crop does not require any more fertilizers.

• If you have lettuce seeds, begin planting them about 4"-6" apart indoors in a wide tray with organic seed-starter and soil mix. Provide fluorescent lighting. Place a plastic cover over the soil bed to contain warmth and humidity. When your seedlings develop, expose them to a few hours of outdoor climate and sunlight for a few days before you transplant them.

• Water your seedlings liberally. Then using a trowel, carefully uproot each seedling. Place them in 4"-8" deep holes in your garden bed. Place the lettuce seedlings about a foot apart so that they do not crowd. Crowding can cause decay and fungal growth.

• Cover the soil with 1"-2" of mulch to maintain moisture and inhibit weeds. Water your plants adequately once in 2-3 days. Do not over-water. Water accumulation can result in leaf-decay.

• Inspect your lettuce leaves regularly. The ones close to the soil are prone to get affected by aphids and worms. Prune affected leaves and use an organic pesticide to keep fungal infections away.

• Examine your crops to determine the right time for harvesting. Harvest the leaves before they over-mature and turn bitter. You can remove the mature leaves and allow the lettuce head to grow further in some lettuce varieties.

You can also plant companion crops like tomato along with lettuce. This will save space in your garden - by the time the tomato plants need more space, your lettuce will be ready for harvest.