Last edited by shiny on 8 Nov 2026. View history

Looseleaf Lettuce

No scientific name recorded

A variety of lettuce

How to sow looseleaf lettuce: Direct seed outdoors, thin to 15cm apart when seedlings are 3cm tall

Sun requirement for looseleaf lettuce: Plant in Partial Sun

Looseleaf lettuces are fast growing and don't form tight heads. This makes them ideal for growing as salad mix. Seed mixes often include a variety of lettuce types that have different colors and textures. Looseleaf lettuce is harvested by cutting the outer leaves or by cutting the entire plant in a "cut-and-come-again" method. Lettuce is generally a cool-weather crop, but some varieties are heat-tolerant.

1: planting
3: harvests
0: seed packets

Growstuff is a free, community-run site for people who grow food. Keep track of what you plant and harvest, find seeds to swap, and see what is growing near you. Join to record your own looseleaf lettuces.

Looseleaf lettuce facts

Lifespan

Annual living and reproducing in a single year or less

First harvest expected

7 weeks after planting

Height × spread

25cm × 15cm

Row Spacing

15cm

Grown for

leaf harvested 3 times

What are growing degree days?

A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.

Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.

For looseleaf lettuce, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 5°C and a shortest growing cycle of 35 days at its best temperature, about 403 growing degree days to a first harvest.

Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your looseleaf lettuce will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.

Growing looseleaf lettuces

deterring pests

place tilted jars of yeast+warm water (or beer) as slug traps at planting out every month

Growing lettuce

Sow seeds in trays 3 weeks before planting out
Dig compost into the bed 1 week before planting out
Water regularly at planting out every week
Weed around the seedlings 2 weeks after planting out
Sow another batch for a continuous harvest 4 weeks after planting out every month
Start picking the outer leaves at first harvest
Pull out plants that have bolted 6 weeks after first harvest