How to Grow Lettuce: A Complete Organic Growing Guide

There is nothing quite so good as homegrown lettuce! Homegrown lettuce might seem like a luxury, but it is actually one of the simplest vegetables to grow from seed.

From romaine to leaf lettuce, skip purchasing lettuce at the grocery store and grow it in your garden. It won’t take long, and you’ll have fresh, vitamin-rich, organic lettuce right on your doorstep for a fraction of the price!

Use this guide to grow tons of picture perfect lettuce. Learn about sowing times, planting techniques, how much to water, and my top tips for a perpetual harvest.

Let-Us Grow

Here at MIgardener, I want to share all of my favorite growing secrets, from my garden to yours, so we can grow together. That’s why I’ve made videos and blog posts on how to grow lettuce, different types of lettuce, growing lettuce in containers, and how to harvest lettuce for a continual harvest.

As you read through this series of growing guides, you’ll find all you need to know for growing an organic home garden.

Exploring Lettuce Varieties

Lettuce comes in many varieties, each with its own taste and growing characteristics. Lettuce is usually categorized into romaine, looseleaf, crisphead (or iceberg), and butterhead.

• Romaine lettuce has crisp, long, upright leaves that salad lovers enjoy.
• Looseleaf lettuce grows a rosette of tender leaves that you can keep picking. 
• Crisphead lettuce forms tight heads resembling cabbage and has a mild flavor. 
• Butterhead lettuce leaves have a soft “buttery” texture, making them perfect for sandwiches and salads.

Exploring the different types of lettuce will help you pick the right lettuce seeds to grow in your garden beds.

When to Plant Lettuce Throughout the Year

Grow lettuce in cool weather. Anything warmer than about 65°F will start the bolting process and change the flavor. The seed packets should tell you the ideal germination temperature range for each variety. Use that as a guide for when to plant in your area.

Lettuce tolerates cold temperatures better than most other vegetables, but some varieties are more cold hardy than others. You have probably noticed in my gardening videos that I don’t sow all my lettuce at the same time.

In very early spring, I direct sow only the most cold hardy varieties, such as Tango Leaf Lettuce, Lolla Rossa Leaf Lettuce, and Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce. These can handle the cold weather, even when I am planting in March!

Other varieties I start indoors or direct sow later (learn more about what I’m planting in April and planting in May), saving the most heat tolerant varieties, like Ruby Red Leaf Lettuce and Slobolt Lettuce, for the last spring planting. In mid to late June, sometimes even early July, I am still harvesting non-bitter, super crisp, delicious lettuce for our meals!

To get this steady supply of lettuce, I practice succession sowing by dividing my lettuce bed into quarters or smaller sections and only plant one section at a time. Then, I wait 2 to 4 weeks and plant out another portion of the bed with lettuce and so on until the bed is fully planted.

It’s tempting to plant it all out at once, but remember, if your plan is to have a perpetual harvest of lettuce, you don’t want to plant everything at the same time. For my fall garden, I start succession sowing lettuce again after the summer heat has passed. Pro-Tip: If you want to grow as much food as possible, try using the Seedtime App. One of my favorite components of Seedtime is that it tells you when to sow and succession sow each crop. It’s so nice to have a refresher or reminder on sowing times!

How to Grow Lettuce from Seeds or Seedlings

Use these instructions to plant lettuce in your garden, whether you are direct sowing seeds or transplanting seedlings.

1. Sunlight - Plant lettuce in an area where it can soak up full sun for 5-8 hours a day. Any more than this, and the direct sunlight may cause it to bolt early, grow bitter, or flower before you have the chance to harvest it.

2. Amend the Soil - Lettuce roots are much finer than you'd find on other plants, so they require loose soil to allow for proper establishment. Make sure the soil crumbles in your hand and is free of clods and clumps. When working with heavy clay soil, it's important to amend the soil by mixing in even amounts of sand and compost.

3. Check Soil pH - Test your soil pH before planting. Lettuce thrives in neutral to alkaline soil, with a pH around 7.0 and no higher than 7.5.

4. Fertilize - Lettuce is a heavy nitrogen feeder. In order for lettuce to grow strong, it's important to feed it a nitrogen-rich fertilizer like Trifecta+. Nitrogen is important for encouraging leaf growth. Sprinkle approximately 1 cup of fertilizer per every 3-5 square feet of garden space. Rake in your fertilizer of choice to the top layer of soil where the roots will begin to establish.

5. Plant Spacing - I think plant spacing is the number reason most gardeners don’t grow as much lettuce as they could! Whether you are direct sowing or planting seedlings, I strongly encourage you to use high intensity spacing when planting any lettuce variety. It will maximize your harvest without sacrificing plant health or yields.

6. Direct Sow Seeds - If you are direct sowing seeds, create shallow rows about ¼ inch deep and 3 to 4 inches apart. Sow lettuce seeds every half-inch in the rows and cover them with soil. Pro-Tip: Make sure that each row is planted with a single variety of lettuce! This will prevent overcrowding.

7. Plant Seedlings - If you started seeds indoors or bought plants from a garden center, plant the seedlings in rows very close together, so that the plants are touching. Space the rows 3 to 4 inches apart. Use a dibbler, trowel, your hand, or even a stick to create a divot in the soil where you want to transplant each seedling. Plant a single seedling in a hole, making sure it is planted at its original depth. Gently tamp the soil down.

8. Water - Water the seeds or seedlings after planting, and make sure to water lettuce frequently as it grows. Water when the soil 1" below the surface feels dry to touch.

9. Harvest - Use cut-and-come-again harvesting to constantly regenerate your lettuce. Here’s a blog post that teaches how to harvest lettuce with the cut-and-come-again method!

Troubleshooting Common Lettuce Growing Issues

No matter how heat tolerant your lettuce is, no matter how late you start it, and no matter how much you try to protect it, lettuce will still eventually go to seed. So my number one tip is when your lettuce is beautiful, eat it and enjoy it!

Growing lettuce can be very rewarding, but nothing, in my opinion, is more rewarding than harvesting lettuce in the middle of summer and tasting the sweet, tender greens that you usually get to enjoy only in spring.