Growing Winter Lettuce

Lettuce

Lettuce

Winter lettuce is ideal if you want to keep picking lettuce throughout the autumn and winter. Some varieties are very winter hardy and some require frost protection in the form of cloches in September.

As lettuce is a cool weather crop, high temperatures may cause slow or no germination. Sow in the coolest part of the day and water well with cold water.

Sow Seeds: August and September
Harvest: October to April

Where do I Sow? Raised Beds or Pots/Containers.

Varieties to Choose from:

  • Winter Density – Semi cos type, slow to bolt in spring
  • Winter Crop – Organic early variety with large heads of pale green leaves.
  • Valdor – old favorite with deep green leaves and is winter hardy.
  • Lattughino – loose leaf with red tinge and resistant to cold.
  • Winter Marvel – a french variety which can be harvested from October onwards.
Winter Lettuce

Winter Lettuce

How To Sow Winter Lettuce Seeds

You will need:

  • A Raised Bed or Pot/Container,
  • Winter Lettuce Seeds,
  • A Trowel or garden cane,
  • Multi-purpose or potting compost,
  • Watering can,
  • Plant Labels.

Instructions:

  1. Refer to your own seed packet or take these instructions as a guide only.
  2. Fill up the pot/container with multi-purpose compost. Add some multi-purpose compost to your raised bed and rake level.
  3. Use a trowel or garden cane to mark straight lines (a row or trench) into the soil approx 1 inch deep.
  4. Water the row lightly.
  5. Open the seed packet and sow the seeds thinly if possible (but you can thin later) in the bottom of the 1 inch deep trench.
  6. Cover the seed with a sprinkling of compost.
  7. Water the compost well.
  8. Label the row at both ends.
  9. The seeds should not need watering again until they appear above the soil as seedlings. If sowing in pots, check the soil regularly as pots dry out quicker than raised beds.

How long will it take for seedlings to appear?

1 to 3 weeks depending on weather conditions.

Thinning the Seedlings
When the seedlings have been growing for about a 6 – 8 weeks, they may be growing too close together, therefore you will need to thin (pull out) a few of the seedlings to leave gaps for the seedlings to grow into bigger plants. You can thin as many times as you like, over the course of the plant growing.

If you feel a plant will need more room to grow, before you pull out the plant next to it, double check you do actually want to remove it. Sometimes crops can grow close together, you will just get a reduced size plant as it is competing with others in close proximately.

When the seedlings are young it is worth not thinning too harshly, leave most in place to help for those seedlings you may loose to pest or disease attacks. Then thin the weak seedlings to remove them from your plot to leave the strong growing plants.

Pests and Diseases of Winter Lettuce

Click on the links below for more details on symptoms, prevention and treatments.

  1. Greenfly or Aphids,
  2. Slugs and Snails,

Recommended Winter Vegetables to grow with Winter Lettuce are:-

Other Links you may also find useful:

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