Many varieties, quick harvest

The ideal salad bed

If you choose a sunny location for your salad, you can avoid unnecessarily high nitrate levels. In addition, no solid heads of lettuce form in the shade. You don't necessarily have to plant an entire bed, lettuce can also be used as a gap filler because it is harvested after just a few weeks. The soil should be humus and well ventilated, preferably with plenty of compost in it.

Which salad would you like?

The selection of lettuce varieties for the home garden is so large that every gardener should find a suitable variety. A distinction must be made between summer and winter salads, but the leaf color and the taste of the salad also play an important role. Pay attention to robust varieties, these are more frugal and have fewer problems with pests such as mildew or aphids.

Here you will find a small selection of suitable types of salad:

• “Maikönig” has delicate yellow-green leaves and is particularly suitable for early cultivation.
• "Ice cream salad" forms very firm heads and is particularly crunchy, but is not so suitable for outdoors. It should better be grown in the greenhouse.
• "Attrakion" is one of the heat-resistant varieties.
• 'Merveille des quatre saisons' has reddish leaves and is well suited for growing from spring to autumn.

Sowing and harvesting

Salad goes well in the Cold frame or in pots. To make it easier for the small plants to plant out later, they should not be sown too densely. Two to three seeds per pot, or a row spacing of around 25 centimeters, are ideal. This distance should also be maintained between the individual heads later.

Depending on the variety, you can harvest the first heads of lettuce after about five to seven weeks. However, do not plant too many heads of lettuce at once or the lettuce will start to shoot before you can harvest it. It is better to re-sow or replant every two to four weeks, then you can look forward to a regular harvest.

Tips & Tricks

For an early harvest, prefer plants under glass or buy them from your gardener. Don't plant your lettuce next to parsley or celery, it won't do it any good. Lettuce plants need sufficient moisture so that they don't shoot.