Growing your own lettuce

Lettuce is one of the easiest thing to grow and anyone can have a go at it. All you need is a planting box, seeds and some potting compost. Within a few short weeks you will have enough baby leaves to pick for a salad and you'll suddenly find yourself munching like a mad thing to keep up with the supply.

The lettuce I am growing at the moment is from a seed mix that includes Lollo Rossa, Curled Endive, Radicchio Rossa and Rocket. I was a little late getting sowing and planting this year but I could have started sowing this seed pack outdoors back in March. Unfortunately, I only got my seeds into the soil in the first week of June. But right now, in mid July, I can pick the equivalent of a whole supermarket bag of mixed lettuce leaves, barely make a dent in my plant box and come back two days later to do the same. These leaves re-sprout several times so they will give our little family an endless supply over the next few weeks. It looks like I can keep harvesting too until about October. And I only used about half the pack of seeds. So technically, I could maybe have planted one box in March and while we were finishing eating that, I could have planted a second box in late June. And that would have kept us with a plentiful supply of lettuce from March straight through to October. That's pretty amazing when you think about it.

If you like your salads, then growing lettuce really does makes sense. A pack of lettuce seeds costs about 2 euro. A bag of lettuce in your supermarket is going to cost you about 1.50 euro and this will last you only a few days. Many times in the past I filled my trolley with lots of fruit and veg with the best of intentions, feeling all smug and healthy at the checkout. Loaded it into the fridge when I got home only to forget about a lot of it. I would come across the bag of lettuce a few days later, use a bit that day, use another bit the next day and then soon the rest of the contents would be wilted and soggy and gone off. I'm ashamed to think of this waste now. When you grow your own leaves, you pick what you need, when you need it. You are getting the optimum nutrients straight from your garden and there is no waste. And no plastic packaging. If you've got too much lettuce growing for your household, gift some to someone or even see if you know anyone who will swap with you for whatever they are growing in their garden.

So get some soil into your planting box, spread some seeds thinly on top and cover with about 1.5 cm of soil. Keep the soil moist at the start but don't over-water and just remember to keep the soil moist always, especially through dry conditions. I have my lettuce box up on the garden table, far above the snail grub crawl I'm hoping! If you don't have a garden, get yourself a window box for your apartment balcony or your windowsill. The plant box that I am using is a plastic window box. I bought this many years ago and it's still in perfect condition. But I wouldn't buy one today. If you ask about, anyone who is into gardening often have a load of empty plastic plant pots filling their shed and might be very glad to offload a few to you. A skip I recently saw in our neighbourhood had at least 40-50 garden pots in it, plastic and terracotta. All sizes. I grabbed a few but I wish now I had taken the lot!

I hope you give growing lettuce a try. There is great satisfaction in watching it grow and serving it up on your plate. It's an easy one to master even if you don't think you have "green fingers".

Pick some leaves, lightly rinse and toss with some sun kissed vine cherry tomatoes, a little sliced red onion, little drizzles of a good extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Enjoy!