Heat Today will be hot in the south of the Netherlands: up to 33 degrees! Check whether your reservoir is still full, whether the mix is still moist, shade vulnerable plants around midday, and wait with sowing until it cools down.
Stem lettuce
Product information
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Description
Specifications
Height: 60 cm
Contents: 0.5 grams
In the app
Sowing: 1 April - 30 June
Level 1
seeds sown
Level 2
seedling emerging
Level 3
one seedling
Level 4
small plants
Level 5
first harvest
Level 6
harvesting stems
- Currently only shipping to the Netherlands and Belgium
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- Sent by PostNL or Transmission
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- The app helps you with almost everything you do in your vegetable garden: sowing, tending, and harvesting.
- If something goes wrong, the app tells you what steps to take.
- If that doesn’t work, you can ask us for advice.
- If that still doesn’t help, we’ll look for other solutions together. Until we get it right.
Stem lettuce
- Species name: Asparagus lettuce celtuse
- Family: leaf
- Plants per square patch: 2
- Height: 40 to 60 cm
- Sowing time: April - June
- Sowing depth: 1 cm
- Germination: 6 - 18°C in 7 - 14 days, won’t germinate above 20°C
- Time to harvest: leaves after 5 weeks, stem 8 - 10 weeks
- Sunlight: can grow in sun and semi-shade
The leaves are tougher and more bitter than than head lettuce, but that makes them great in a stew or stir fry.
Stem lettuce grows best in cooler summers. So if it's hot, give them some shade - especially in the afternoon sun.
Pests and diseases won't be much of a problem for stem lettuce. But watch out for snails in those first weeks: they do like the young plants.
You can harvest the leaves after 5 weeks or so. Harvest the stem when it's about 5 cm in diameter. Don’t leave it too long: it can get tough, dry, and sometimes even hollow.
Extra info: You can grow stem lettuce in early March under glass or in a cold greenhouse. Not on the windowsill, that’s too hot. You can also grow them in August in a cold greenhouse.
Step-by-step sowing and growing instructions are in the Planty Gardening app.
But: you grow this lettuce mainly for the stems of course. Harvest them when they're 25 - 45 cm tall and 3 - 5 cm thick. Peel first before eating.
Try the stem raw in a salad, or enjoy cooked stems in a stew, stir fry or on its own briefly boiled. When cooked, the stems look kind of like asparagus. That's why it's sometimes called asparagus lettuce.