Harvest, store & freeze lamb's lettuce

With a few tips, you can harvest lamb's lettuce in no time at all. After that, however, it does not necessarily have to be prepared as a salad - there are also recipes for lamb's lettuce that provide some variety.

Lamb's lettuce (Valerianella locusta) is a classic winter vegetable, but depending on the variety of lamb's lettuce can also be grown all year round. When you at home Grow lamb's lettuce, the final steps are harvesting and preparation. In this article you will find out how best to harvest, store and finally prepare lamb's lettuce.

Harvest lamb's lettuce

The harvest of lamb's lettuce is already determined by the sowing date. When sowing in summer, the harvest can be as early as 8 to 10 weeks after sowing the lamb's lettuce. If you sow later, the lamb's lettuce will be harvested after about 16 weeks at the latest.

Lamb's lettuce is usually harvested as a whole floret, but only a single harvest is possible. The best way to do this is as follows:

• Take the leaves together with one hand and bend them to the side.
• Using a sharp knife in your other hand, cut off the florets just above the root.

If there is some soil on the lower leaves, you can wash the lamb's lettuce just before use.

Since the entire bed is usually not harvested, you can make sure that you only harvest larger plants. This gives other, smaller specimens more space and can continue to grow, which ultimately means you harvest more lamb's lettuce. Since most lamb's lettuce varieties start to shoot in warm temperatures and the leaves not taste so fine afterwards, but care should be taken to taste it before flowering to reap.

Tip: Do not harvest the lamb's lettuce when the lettuce is still slightly frozen, otherwise it will quickly become mushy.

Can you harvest lamb's lettuce more than once? If you want to harvest the lamb's lettuce more often, you should only cut or pluck the outer leaves. If the base is not damaged, the lamb's lettuce will follow and you can harvest a plant more often. However, harvesting individual leaves is relatively time-consuming until you have a good portion together.

Store and preserve lamb's lettuce

Before storing harvested lamb's lettuce, it is important to remove wilted and injured leaves with a knife to prevent disease. Lamb's lettuce is not suitable for storage and should be eaten as fresh as possible. It will only keep for about 3 to 4 days in the fridge. Under optimal conditions, i.e. at 0 to 1 °C and high humidity, lamb's lettuce can be kept for up to 14 days. Such conditions are achieved in a plastic bag with few air holes. Unfortunately, freezing the lamb's lettuce is not an option, as the leaves will become wilted and mushy.

Our tip: If you have to preserve the lamb's lettuce because of holidays or other reasons, we recommend that you process the lamb's lettuce into pesto. This stays fresh longer because of the oil. You need about 50 ml of olive oil for every 100 grams of lamb's lettuce. Through pumpkin seeds, walnuts, pine nuts, parmesan and other ingredients you can refine the pesto, simply season with salt and pepper.

Prepare lamb's lettuce

Before you start preparing it, the lamb's lettuce should be cleaned first. To do this, remove wilted leaves and then wash the lettuce under cold water. Lamb's lettuce is usually prepared as a salad. The florets are used whole and not chopped up. Still, there are some recipes that use lamb's lettuce with something garlic and olives fried and served with pasta. Lamb's lettuce is also a good choice as a decorative topping on sandwiches.

Are lamb's lettuce flowers edible? Yes, the blossoms of lamb's lettuce can be eaten, as can the stalks, seeds or roots. So if a lamb's lettuce is in bloom, there's no need to worry: you can still eat the lamb's lettuce or leave the blossom in order to harvest seeds later.

How healthy is lamb's lettuce?

Lamb's lettuce is considered the healthiest lettuce because it contains many important ingredients. Because of its vitamin content and minerals, lamb's lettuce is considered healthy and is one of the most nutritious types of lettuce. Lamb's lettuce contains provitamin A, which is converted into vitamin A in the body, vitamin C, folic acid, iron and relevant proportions of minerals such as magnesium, potassium and calcium.

Another healthy leafy green is spinach (Spinacia oleracea), which can also be grown all year round. When, where and how you grow spinach you can find out in our special article.