Crop Harvest Duration - Lettuces

Following on from my thread explaining the "planning" data I am trying to collect for Crop Harvest Duration

I've been having a look at my records for Lettuces.

I reckon the First-to-Last harvest interval is three weeks tops, nearer to two weeks. (Cut-and-come-again lettuces, where you just take a few leaves off, presumably have a longer cropping period; I'm referring to Lettuces taken whole in order to get a good heart)

Would you agree?

 

Hi Kristen. Sounds about right. One thing though, I think it CAN be weather related. Although I'm quite happy with my Lettuces, I HAVE seen better during a wet season where they seem to achieve very large proportions and seem slower to go 'over'. Mind you, a lot of this gardening stuff is still new to me and my experience is quite limited, timewise.
Cheers...freddy.

 

Hi Kristen

Crop duration = how long a crop "holds"? Am I right? On that assumption, I would agree with you that 3 weeks is about right for most round headed lettuce. I'd also agree with Freddy that weather has some influence on the matter, in the way that he suggests.

I've grown Lollo Rosso for the first time this year and assumed it was a cut-and-come-again type. In practice, I've found it just as easy to harvest them one at a time, cutting the whole head. I've still got 3 left and they must have been sitting there, full sized, quietly waiting to be eaten for at least 3 weeks! No sign of bolting. So I think your assumption about this type of lettuce holding longer is probably right.

 

" during a wet season where they seem to achieve very large proportions and seem slower to go 'over'"

Yes, I'm with you on that. I can't really control that very well although I can obviously take it into account early in the season, compared to mid-season - on average at least.

"Crop duration = how long a crop "holds"?"

Yup, that's exactly what I'm after.

If a crop holds for, say, a month I can aim to sow to bring on replacements a month later (might not be sowing a month later as, come Spring and Summer, they will mature more quickly than those planted in the depths of Winter of course)

But Lettuces I'm going to have to do twice a month .. and I've only been doing once-a-month this year. JWK and others I have read re-sow Lettuces when they prick-out / pot-up. I dismissed that as far too fiddly and thus unnecessary - I would, after all, only be growing 3 or 4 lettuces each "batch". Of course they were spot on though :D

We have used so few lettuce, compared to my "plan", early in the season that I was thinking of moving to cut-and-come-again to be more "flexible" anyway. My DW was away last night, so I picked a nice Cos, took a few nice leaves off, tore them up and mixed in a bowl with some dressing, and a couple of tomatoes, put the remaining 99% of the lettuce in a mug of water ... and then decided that I had had a severe case of eyes-bigger-than-stomach! A lettuce gives far too much salad for just the two of us ... but later in the Summer we will be having B-B-Q parties for hordes, so I expect with reasonable timing, and a decent sized baseball bat held in a menacing fashion , I can have them patting me on the back for the wondrousness of my salad :D :D