Quote:
Originally Posted by David.WE.Roberts
A week or so back I bought some Cos lettuce plants from a local nursery.
They are growing well and fast in the 'raised bed' bags but so far they
don't look like the picture on the label :-)
At the moment they are more like a leaf lettuce than a heart lettuce - but
it looks as though the heart is beginning to develop.
If this carries on, I think I will have a lettuce heart and a more or less
redundant ring of leaves around the base.
So when can I pick these outer leaves for an early crop without
compromising the forming of the heart?
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My guess would be that the outer leaves will probably die. So I'd take the view that I might as well get some goodness out of them before they go yellow. On the other hand, the yellowing happens because the "goodness" is being recycled back into the plant.
On a related topic- bought one of those fancy trays of "living lettuce" which had been reduced on the veg section of the supermarket. When we'd finished it, I dumped it in the greenhouse and kept it watered; it's now coming back for its third cutting.
Since I don't have much space for veg, I don't worry about a constant supply of lettuce (which is relatively cheap) and concentrate instead on other salad leaves, to make up the ingredients for a mixed green salad. Although at the moment there's enough stuff as a by-product - the tiny leaves on last year's chard which is now flowering are good, along with yellow oregano and chives flowers.
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