PlantSowGrow
How to grow Lettuce (Salad Bowl Mixed)
Lactuca sativa
🥕 Vegetable
🌱 Grown each year
A red and green oak-leaf lettuce you pick leaf by leaf for weeks — the easiest cut-and-come-again salad for beds, pots and window boxes.
At a glance: Sow mid March to mid August, harvest from mid April.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Harvest
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Lettuce (Salad Bowl Mixed): what it needs
- Light
- Part shade · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water regularly in dry weather
- Soil
- Fertile, well-drained soil
- Spacing
- 20 cm
- In pots
- Grows well in containers
- Feeding
- A general feed before sowing or planting
- Harvest
- About 35 days from sowing
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–9
- Difficulty
- Easy
Step by step
- Mid March – mid August · 4 weeks before the last spring frost
Sow Seeds Outdoors
Sow thinly in drills where they are to grow. Lettuce seed will not germinate above 25°C — sow in the evening in hot weather.
- 4–10 days after “Sow Seeds Indoors” · Late March
Check Germination
Seedlings should appear in 4–10 days. If sown outdoors, thin to 20 cm apart when big enough to handle.
- 25–46 days after “Check Germination” · Mid April – early May
Start Harvesting
Pick outer leaves, or cut the whole plant 3 cm above the soil and let it regrow.
- 14–28 days after “Start Harvesting” · Late April – mid May
Sow Another Batch (optional)
Sow a short row or tray every 3 weeks for salad all summer.
- 45–75 days after “Sow Another Batch” · Mid June – mid July
Finish and Clear
Clear the remains to the compost heap once cropping ends.
