Eating home-grown lettuce without killing the plant?

Question

I have been growing my own lettuce (I'm a first time gardener) in my backyard, and it looks awesome now and ready to eat. But it's taken about 2 months or so to get it to be this way, and I don't want to just eat it all and then have to replant lettuce seeds and wait another 2 months till I can eat some more.

Can I just cut off certain leaves without killing the plant? I know that plants need their leaves so that they can absorb the sunlight for photosynthesis, but how much of it does it need? Can I cut most of the leaves off?

Thanks!

I live in Hawaii where it is always 'summer'. The type of lettuce I'm growing is a mixed leaves lettuce.. Some kind of hybrid? It looks like those organic salad greens you get from the store.

Answer 1

Firstly it depends on the kind of lettuce you have. If its a hearting lettuce (forms a tight ball in the centre, like iceburg) then you are better off picking them and putting them in the fridge. If its a loose leaf lettuce, (no heart, like raddishio, butterball) then you can pick off the outer leaves, no more than 1/3 of the leaves, over 2 weeks. Then can pick again. If you have a few plants, just pick one or two at a time.
To get a continuous crop, plant only a few plants, and plant every 2 - 4 weeks. That way there is always one or two coming ready.

Answer 2

Yes, you can take leaves from the outside of the plant and it will keep growing, as long as it is leaf lettuce of some kind. Iceberg lettuce is much more difficult to treat this way. The amount of leaves is hard to say without knowing what kind of lettuce you have, but I probably wouldn't take more than half the plant. And you can also plant some more now so that when you've used up the rest, you'll have new plants ready. You must be pretty far north for your lettuce to still be OK in midsummer, though, so you may not have enough of a growing season left for a new crop.

Answer 3

You could pick off outside leaves, but it is kind of tedious.
What works for me is sowing seeds every other week. I
leave room between the first rows I sow, and 2 weeks later
I plant more seeds, about the time I start picking from the
first row (I don't thin out the seedlings, or I do when the
lettuce is about 4" high, what I thin out is salad that night.)
I plant at least 4 varieties, so I have a good mix for salads-
right now I am picking a ton or red leaf and black seeded
simpson, I have some butter lettuce that will be ready in
another week or so, and I just put in new seeds so I will
have lettuce until Oct or Nov ( I live in SF bay area, so the
weather stays nice for a long time, just have to keep an eye
out when the rain starts, as the weeds fo crazy.) I just wish
my tomatoes ripend a little faster, but the summer fog
really slows them down. I sort of accidently got into lettuce
growing, got a packet in the mail and planted it, and the
flavor of home grown lettuce got me totally addicted, now it
one of my favorite things to grow.

Answer 4

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