Budget Saver - how to grow lettuce at home

For cheap greens seeds you could do what I did last year … which was plant leftover stems of store bought lettuces we enjoyed. I didn’t plant for harvesting the leaves and just let them flower and seed along some other flowers I had in pots. No special growing or pots needed for that part. I harvested those last year and we’re growing and eating them this year! One plant made so many seeds and I love the little flowers anyway.

Is there a secret for getting lettuce to "head" properly or in the case of Romaine to become a thick bunch of leaves?  I am growing red leaf outdoors and hoping it will live till heavy frost comes but it is just 3-6 leaves each plant altho they are a decent size 5 in across.  It would be nice if it were thicker heads!  I have the same thing happening with caulifower and bok choy- i.e. spindly plants.

Denise Cares wrote:... it is just 3-6 leaves each plant altho they are a decent size 5 in across.  It would be nice if it were thicker heads!  I have the same thing happening with cauliflower and bok choy- i.e. spindly plants.

Are they getting enough hours of sunlight? At this time of year, plants may "live", but not thrive due to lack of hours and strength of light.

I have a mini variety of Romaine growing in a bin on my front porch. I used my own seed, so I figured whatever I got would be worth the little bit of care they needed. I've gotten enough to pick individual leaves for sandwiches, but they are definitely growing minimally at this point (mid November). I suspect that by the time the light improves in the spring they will just bolt.

However, I'm a fair bit further north than you are, and we get a lot of winter cloud cover.

I've read that "winter harvesting" is more just the plants being cool enough they don't go bad, but they aren't appreciably growing. To have them big and able to be harvested in Nov, they have to be planted early summer to mid-Aug to accomplish that. I planted some peas late August. They've got lots of flowers, but I've only had a small handful of tiny pods. I mostly planted them to keep the soil microbes happy, so the handful was a nice bonus and the flowers are cheery, but I think all my pollinators are hibernating already!

Jay, The short days and reduced light may be the reason for the weak lettuce, since we are getting plenty of rain and sunlight when it's not raining. I'm happy with picking a few leaves here and there for salads and sandwiches too. Like you I planted some peas in late August and they are growing slowly but no flowers yet. They're helping fix nitrogen but it's also nice to see some green amid all the brown leaves!

I let a few old plants set seed, then scatter the seed on top the ground. Plenty grows.

It is getting too late, frost season is here, but I am going to scatter some seed into my cold frame and see what happens. Some should still sprout, and some will survive until spring and we usually get very early lettuce the next year. Lettuce seed can be spread in fall or winter or spring. Fall and winter planted will grow with the earliest spring weeds. I planted during a February thaw and when the real thaw came the lettuce came right up.

I am zone 6b, so we often get frost down to -10F and occasionally much colder. Zero is routine in January. It does not kill some lettuce that is under snow.