Lettuce

How to propagate lettuce

The daisy family is a seed family — those flower heads are seed factories, and most members come up fast and willing from direct sowing. The perennial members (coneflower, black-eyed Susan, the native sunflowers) also clump up over a few years and can be lifted and split in fall or early spring to make free plants and keep the center from dying out.

Growing lettuce in Texas

Give it part sun in texas heat and rich, moist soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.

This is a cool-season crop. On the Texas Gulf Coast that means your real windows are fall and late winter, not summer — sow as the heat breaks in September–October and again in late winter, and you'll harvest through our mild winters while the rest of the country is frozen out.

In a container it'll dry faster than in the ground, so check the top inch of soil daily in summer; pots on a hot Texas patio can need water every single day.

Harvesting

Figure on roughly 30–60 before you're harvesting. Harvest at peak and keep harvesting — most vegetables produce harder the more you pick, and one left to over-mature tells the plant its job is done. The part you're after: leaves.

Making more for free

Every seed we sell is open-pollinated, which means you can save your own from the best plants and it'll grow true next year. Let a few of your strongest plants finish and go to seed, dry it fully, and store it cool and dark. That's the whole point of heirlooms — buy once, grow forever.