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Lettuce

How to sow and grow winter lettuce

This hearty head lettuce is ideal for your Planty Garden. It grows well in cold weather and can even handle frost. Ideal for your empty vegetable patches in the fall.

Winter lettuce is a hearty, compact head lettuce: perfect for your Planty Garden — *Winter lettuce*

What is winter lettuce?

Winter lettuce is a version of butterhead lettuce that is even more resistant to cold. So, you can sow in fall to harvest in winter or early spring.

This winter lettuce is often grown under glass or in a cold greenhouse in winter. But if the weather isn't too harsh, it'll do great under a crop cover (the MM-Muts).

The plants form sturdy, green lettuce heads. When fully grown, 4 won't fit in 1 lettuce patch - but since they grow slowly it works out fine in a Planty Garden.

You can also sow winter lettuce in March and April. Just harvest before the heads get too big.

Vitamins and minerals in winter lettuce

So, this lettuce isn't the healthiest vegetable ever. But every little bit helps 😉

Winter lettuce contains a fair amount of vitamin A, as well as some B11 and C. The iron and potassium in it are good for you too.

More about Makkelijke Moestuin Winter lettuce seeds

This sturdy, tasty head lettuce tolerates cold weather well, including a few degrees of frost.

Sow in August to harvest before winter. Sow in October and cover the plants with an MM cover, and you can harvest in winter or early spring.

Variety: Merveille d'Hiver
Family: leaf
Plants per square: 4
Height: 10 to 25 cm
Sowing time: March and April, and August to October
Sowing depth: 0.5 to 1 cm
Germination: 2 to 14 days at 5 to 18°C
Time to harvest: from 6 to 8 weeks when sown in August; later sowings take longer and growth almost stops during winter. Allow about 8 weeks in spring.
Sunlight: use the brightest place available

This variety is no longer in our range and will not return.

What do you need to grow your own Winter lettuce?

All you need is this:

a 30x30 cm bed with a light, nutritious soil mix
Winter lettuce seeds
a spot with at least 4 hours of sunlight per day

In other words: a MM-mini, or a patch in an MM-gardenbox, filled with MM-mix.

On this perfect soil mix, growing Winter lettuce is really easy. If you grow it on poor quality (potting) soil, it will be much more difficult and the results will be disappointing. So don't skimp on it and go for the best.

How do you sow and grow winter lettuce?

This lettuce is included in the free Planty Gardening app. Use it, and you'll get step-by-step guidance from seed to harvest.

Each vegetable goes through a number of stages - we call them levels. The app tells you exactly what to do at each level and checks in when your plants are ready for the next one.

So you don't need to know how to grow winter lettuce in advance: the app takes you through every step.

But if you'd like to read more about those steps, here's what the process looks like:

Level 1: Sowing winter lettuce

Choose a square patch at the front of your garden box. Loosen up the moist MM-Mix and sow like this:

poke 4 holes in the patch (no deeper than 1 cm)
put 2 to 3 seeds in each hole
carefully cover up the holes with soil mix

After about a week, you'll see something green come up. It depends a bit on the weather.

If you sow in the spring, it will take a little longer.

Level 2: Winter lettuce seedlings

As soon as you see the first seedlings, you know things are going well. They probably won't all come up at once, but give it another week.

Then it's time for the next level.

Winter lettuce seedlings need to be thinned out — *Winter lettuce seedlings*

Level 3: Thinning winter lettuce seedlings

When several seedlings come up in each hole that you sowed, choose the best ones and remove the rest: that's called thinning out. It might sound harsh, but it's necessary. The remaining plants need that room to grow.

If you see spots where nothing came up, sow a few more seeds.

And keep an eye out for snails: they love these seedlings.

Level 4: Caring for your winter lettuce plants

After a week or 2, your seedlings will become small plants.

You hardly need to do anything: if the weather's dry, give them some water and remove the odd dead or yellow leaf. Easy 🙂

Level 5: Harvesting

If you sow in August, this level is 7 to 8 weeks after sowing: the plants are ready for the first harvest. (Sowing in October will give you the first harvest in April and May.)

You can harvest in 2 ways.

Option 1:
Cut or pick the individual leaves. As long as you leave the center of the plants, new leaves will appear. This way you can keep picking for a few weeks.

Option 2:
Harvest whole heads. Cut off 1 or 2 heads along right along the soil mix. They'll be a bit small at first but very tasty.

Let the remaining lettuce heads grow. You'll harvest them in the coming weeks.

What do you use winter lettuce for?

Winter lettuce makes for delicious salads. But the leaves are also tasty in green smoothies or on a healthy sandwich.

Winter lettuce plants are hearty, so you also stir fry them: yum.

The last levels

Keep harvesting your winter lettuce until the plants shoot up from the middle. Then they'll start to flower soon.

That upward growth means it's time to harvest right away. The leaves won't be as tasty raw but are still good in mashed potatoes or a stir fry.

(By the way: the plants won't flower in the fall, only in spring.)

The last level: empty your winter lettuce patch and get it ready for something new.

Enjoy!