How to Harvest Lettuce and Keep Growing More

Harvesting Lettuce With the Cut-and-Come-Again Method

The cut and come again method works best with loose leaf lettuce types. Examples include red, green and oak leaf lettuces. You can also harvest early leaves from loose heading types such as Romaine and butterhead or wait to pick until a full head has matured.

1. Plant Looseleaf Varieties That Mature Quickly

   If the seed packet indicates your lettuce variety is ready for harvest in 35 days, that means you'll have leaves big enough to pick just over a month after planting. If you sow seed in March or April, you can potentially stretch the harvest out until late June by consistently picking the outer leaves.
   

2. Start Harvesting Early in the Season

   Mature lettuce plants can tolerate a light frost, but young plants will be damaged. If you live somewhere that doesn't frost in the winter, you can plant early and start harvesting outer leaves as soon as they reach 4 to 6 inches in length. Planting and picking early can increase the length of your harvest by 30 days or more.
   

3. Pick Lettuce in the Morning

   Lettuce is best picked early before the heat of the day sets in which causes the leaves to quickly wilt. In the morning, leaves have the greatest water content which keeps them crisp and flavorful.
   

4. Look for Plants With Large Outer Leaves

   New growth on lettuce starts in the center of the crown. Remove the oldest, largest leaves, 4 to 6 inches long, from the outside of the plant.

5. Pinch or Cut Outer Leaves

   Pinch off each outer leaf about 1/4 to 1/2 inch from the base. Use your thumb and forefinger to apply just enough pressure to break the leaf off the crown. You can also use a sharp, sterile scissor or snipper, however, there is debate as to whether this causes cut edges to brown more quickly.

6. Harvest Until the Plant Sends Up a Flowering Stalk

   Continuously removing older mature leaves encourages the lettuce plant to produce new leaves to replace them. You can continue to harvest individual leaves until the plant sends up a flower stalk, indicating it's ready to bolt and go to seed. Lettuce turns bitter when it bolts.
   

When and How to Harvest Head Lettuce

Head lettuces have a growth habit similar to cabbage. Young leaves sprout from the center with older leaves forming layers to create a dense round or clumped form.

Head lettuce comes in two varieties: crisphead (like iceberg) and loosehead (like Romaine).

• Crisphead types are best left to mature for one harvest and should be monitored according to the days to harvest listed on the seed packet. They are ready to pick when heads are dense and of the expected size.
• Loosehead lettuces also continue to head if outer leaves are removed a time or two, however, this can reduce the overall size of the fully mature head. These lettuces may form a clump of tall straight leaves (Romaine) or a head of looser layering or wrapping leaves (butterhead).

Harvest crispheads by cutting the stem below the core. Depending on size, loose heads can be cut in a similar manner or pulled with underground stems and roots trimmed back to the base of the leaves.

What If My Lettuce Has a Flower Stem?

Eventually, a lettuce plant will send up a flower stem in the middle, indicating it's reached its lifespan and preparing to bolt, or flower and produce seeds. The lettuce leaves may still be edible but are already becoming bitter and tough.

Once this process starts, there is nothing you can do to stop flowering. Discard the plant and, if weather conditions still allow, sow a new crop.