Using lettuce seed to crowd out weeds and make a vegetable garden polyculture

I've heard of folks throwing lettuce seeds in between their other plants in a vegetable garden to fill in the niche weeds usually take up so you have edible weeds.  Seems like a great idea in some ways, however, I'm wondering if this would crowd the other plants and impede their growth.  Any thoughts?

It depends.

I think lettuce has shallow roots (not sure about this), so if the lettuce were to grow next to something with a tap root that is a little taller, I think it would probably be rather fine. 

Plus, there are a lot of things that just seem to do better planted next to lettuce.  Check out companion planting stuff.

oh like this?

This picture is from marisha auerbach's old garden outside of olympia. lettuce continually came up and she would just transplant it every so often to best spaces for it.

i'm experimenting with lettuce in my 'perennial salad' bed, hoping that the annual will reseed itself and thus earn its keep among the perennials.

Thanks for the input guys, I think I'll give it a go later in the season once the other plants are established.  It's funny you bring up Marisha Auerbach Kelda, that's who I originally got the idea from . 

I just visited my folks this weekend and saw some very happy mizuna growing in the front yard, the offspring of some I planted for them last spring... so the "perennial" salad idea is apparently doable.

While I'm at it, there's a green I've been desperate to remember the name of for the last few months, it has fairly dark green rounded leaves with white stems, spicy like mustard greens, has a strange sounding name that I think starts with a T...might be a Z in there somewhere...anyone know what it is?  It's delicious and I'd like to grow some this year. 

Tatsoi?

Yes!  Thank you. 

I agree with the recommendation to interplant other veggies with lettuces (or radishes, asian greens, cilantro, etc.) that you will harvest earlier. I always like to think of one type of veggie in a bed as my primary target product (e.g. broccoli, parsnips, rutabagas, zucchini, etc.). I also like to have other companion plants (like lettuce to suppress weeds) in the bed, but I'm never hesitant to remove them if they seem to be negatively affecting the target product. Thus, if I had a bed of brussel sprouts interplanted with head-lettuce, I would harvest the lettuce early if it seemed to be shading out the brussel sprouts. In general I would recommend low-growing, quick harvest interplanting species.

That's just my take. For me, filling in all those spaces between your baby veggies goes hand-in-hand with our Permaculture goal of focusing on small-scale, INTENSIVE systems. If we can meet our lettuce needs in a smaller area by interplanting them, I'm all for it.

Also, letting a couple lettuces go to seed (like Maurisha has done) is a great idea. It's like having a little nursery right in the garden that you can transplant from and fill in all your empty spaces.

Dave

I concur wholeheartedly with this caveat:  You have to figure out a way to keep the chickens out of the garden, because the 'ladies' will eat ALL your salad greens as soon as they sprout through the soil.  The flip side to that "problem" is actually a plus, however:  GREAT tasting eggs!

I'm interested whether anyone has more to add to this thread? I've been sowing lettuce between the plants in my polytunnel and am letting them go to seed in the hope that I'll get a self seeding salad bar going in there! Early days yet, but they were growing in and around my tomatoes without seeming to affect them any. The ones under my pea trellises were a little difficult to reach to harvest though .

Lettuce is not the only plant that will do this.

Other include daikon radish, field peas, fava beans, cowpeas, etc.

Same thing with my polytunnel, Nancy. Let a few go to seed last year and this summer I had a decent amount just appearing in between the tomatoes. Didn't interfere at all, just needed to thin a bit in the denser spots. Mizuna does this even better in my experience, pretty hard to get rid of once it decides it likes a spot.

Corn salad in my ecosystem, is a self-seeding early spring lettuce substitute. It would need some bare soil to germinate in.

My neighbor has a salad he gave me. i've seen his whole garden patch covered in seedlings. Last year he called me to check out what it had done, he had it growing in bare gravel on the other side of the building of the patch. Not a few, something like 20 small plants. Just appeared like that, no sowing.
I've grown this one a few years and managed to cross it with a Moroccan/Italian type of lettuce one which easily crosses we've noticed in the breeders collective.
I'm still growing that type and might ask my neighbor if you want something "pure" , i could send you Nancy.
We're all looking for this self seeding kind of lettuce, so it would also help if you look for it and mix it what already is showing some weedy potential. It's seeds are hard blackish bigger instead of those flimsy white papery flimsy ones i see quite often.

Jay Angler wrote:Corn salad in my ecosystem, is a self-seeding early spring lettuce substitute. It would need some bare soil to germinate in.

Hmm, that's another idea. I wonder whether one could get salad plants germinating all year by selection of species. I think miners lettuce (claytonia perfoliata) grows pretty well here over the winter. Lettuce seems to prefer the shoulder months - spring and autumn, in the tunnel. Although I was picking a little through the summer too, I'm getting another rash of germination of the seeds I sowed now, months later.

Hugo Morvan wrote:I've grown this one a few years and managed to cross it with a Moroccan/Italian type of lettuce one which easily crosses we've noticed in the breeders collective.
I'm still growing that type and might ask my neighbor if you want something "pure" , i could send you Nancy.

That does sound interesting Hugo (might be one for my summer?). I'll maybe send you a pm, perhaps I could save some useful seeds for you too. I'll have a list once I've dried off the various seeds in a month or two.