British gardeners used to grow just three kinds of lettuce — butterhead, cos and crisp. But with our conversion to mixed- leaf salads we have started to plant looseleaf types.
We’ve discovered that you don’t need a whole lettuce to make a delicious salad, rather, a few rocket leaves, a handful of baby spinach and three or four frilly lettuce leaves. Many looseleaf lettuce varieties are also cut-and-come-again types. Seed companies also now offer mixed-leaf selections to be harvested at the baby-leaf stage: from lettuce only, through Japanese leaves and the French and Italian mixes. For all the permutations, I still have a soft spot for butterhead and crisp lettuces and often make ‘Tom Thumb’, below, or ‘Webb’s Wonderful’ the primary leaf for my mix.
Growing butterheads
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Sow a pinch of seed in a 9cm (3½in) pot filled with organic seed compost. Barely cover, water and place on a windowsill. When the immature leaves are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into trays or modules of organic potting compost.
Plant out in ordinary garden soil — if you can fork in a bucket of compost per square metre so much the better. The varieties ‘Buttercrunch’ and ‘Tom Thumb’ should be spaced 15cm apart, others such as ‘Marvel of Four Seasons’, a rich brown and green colour, need 18-20cm. At planting it is essential not to bury the crown (growing point). Often lettuces flop over after planting because they have prominent necks but this does not matter — they soon pick themselves up. Water well and keep watering each day until they have taken hold.
Meanwhile, sow your next batch, as above. When each butterhead has hearted up, usually about eight weeks after planting out, cut the whole plant off at the base and replant with seedlings from your next sowing.
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Crisp lettuce
Grow ‘Iceberg’, ‘Saladin’ and ‘Webb’s Wonderful’ the same as for butterhead. You will get much more flavour from these crisp lettuces than from their supermarket counterparts.
Looseleaf lettuce
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Cultivation techniques are the same as for butterhead. When harvesting either cut the entire lettuce or take individual leaves from the outside of the plant as needed. When you have used all the leaves, cut the stalk to within 5cm of the ground and allow the plant to re-grow. My favourite looseleaf variety is ‘Cocarde’ (available from Simpson’s Seeds) which has more flavour than ‘Salad Bowl’ and ‘Lollo’ varieties.
In pots
Mix up 50:50 garden compost and organic potting compost in a 30cm pot. This will hold three of any type of butterhead lettuce compactly. Keep watered but do not feed.
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Tom Petherick
Suppliers
Mr Fothergill’s (01638 552512).
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Suffolk Herbs (01376 572456).
Simpson’s Seeds (01985 845004)
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