Romaine Lettuce: How To Grow It And Harvest It In 2023!

G’day green thumbs!

You’d like to learn how to grow Romaine lettuce? Romaine lettuce, also known as Cos lettuce in Australia, is nutritional and easy to grow.

We LOVE growing it with our children as it’s a relatively fast growing crop and it can be grown almost year round where we live.

Our kid’s love harvesting the leaves straight from the garden. They are crispy, nutritious and easy for them to pick and munch!

You can even harvest Romaine lettuce so that it continues to grow! How’s that for adding value to your garden?

There’s never been a better time to learn how to grow your own produce. We are gardening and horticultural experts and grow our own Romaine lettuce so you can trust that this guide will help you.

This guide will help you prepare your soil, find where to buy your seeds, plant your seed and harvest your lettuce.

We’ll even give you a yummy tip on one of our favorite Romaine lettuce recipes.

Romaine Lettuce also known as Cos Lettuce, healthy

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Where To Plant Romaine Lettuce

Romaine lettuce can be grown year round in most climates. It does prefer to not be in direct sunlight so if you’re planting it in the summer months it will need some shade to protect it.

Romaine lettuce will grow just fine in autumn and winter without protection. However, if you’re planting them in warmer climates or in scorching hot summers (like we experience here in Australia), it will be good to choose a shady spot or erect a shade cover for them.

You could also plant them nearby a towering plant so that they are provided with natural shade. Artichokes or sweet corn both grow tall and could provide your lettuce with some shade.

Romaine lettuce, and all lettuce in fact like a well draining soil. So this might also impact the spot in your plot you choose.

There are a few other tips and tricks to help you ensure they are in the optimum spot to grow so read on for soil preparation.

Keep out of reach of your chickens!

raised garden beds with lots of spinach and lettuce

How To Prepare Your Soil

So you’ve got your partially shaded spot in your plot and you’re ready to prepare for planting.

We recommend preparing your soil 1-2 weeks before planting. This is to ensure the best environment for your seeds or seedlings to start growing in.

Romaine lettuce needs a well-draining soil. This means you can even plant it in hanging planters. If not, ensure your garden bed is loose and well-draining.

We plant ours in a raised garden bed at about knee height. This means it’s an easy height for the kids to reach for harvest and no cheeky bunnies that make it into our garden can get to it.

Preparing your soil is not difficult at all. Follow these easy steps.

Lightly work a compost with a loose or crumbly consistency into your soil.
Add a small amount of manure based fertilizer consistently to your plot.
Water it down.
Add mulch to the surface. This helps keep the moisture in the bed.
If you want to get technical a PH of 6-6.5 is great (but it’s ok if you skip this step).
Sit back and wait until planting day.

Buying Romaine Lettuce Seed Or Seedlings

Ok, so there’s two ways you can proceed.

Grow from seed
Grow from seedlings

The difference is with seed you are starting at the very beginning and with seedlings they’ve already germinated and began their growth journey.

Growing from seed is obviously a little bit slower but we feel it’s more rewarding. Especially if you’re gardening with kids as they will learn the end to end process from seed to harvest.

You will be able to buy Romaine Lettuce seeds or seedlings at any of your local garden nurseries as they are a common and popular variety of lettuce. Remember it might also be called Cos Lettuce.

If you need your crop within a couple of weeks, seedlings may be of benefit to you as they will only take about 2 weeks to be ready to harvest.

If you choose to buy seedlings make sure you opt for a young and healthy punnet with moist soil and good structure to the growth.

No one wants a limp old punnet of lettuce that’s been left on the shelf for too long.

Plant The Seeds Or Seedlings

Now is an exciting time. Planting time.

Get your gloves on, a small trowel and head outside.

We plant from seed and plant approximately 8-12 inches or 18-26cm apart. This gives plenty of room for your Romaine Lettuces to grow.

They do not need to be sowed deeply. 1-2inches or 3cm is ideal. Ensure you are creating a slight depression into the soil for planting and then loosely covering back over with the mulch. Our kids do this step! It gives them ownership over the crop.

This is much the same process for seedlings however you’ll mulch to the edges of the lettuce rather than over.

It is very important to water them in. We use a mix of water and natural seaweed solution. This helps minimize any shock and let your seeds or seedlings start to absorb their new environment.

Care For Your Lettuce

If you’ve done everything we’ve said so far you’ll be noticing germination at around 7 days. Our children love checking the garden bed at the end of each day for signs of germination.

Lettuce is an easy care crop and you don’t need to be on a strict watering schedule. We recommend adjusting your watering with the weather.

If it’s hot they’ll need more and you can tell by the lettuce looking limp and feeling soft to the touch.

If your lettuce is happy and well hydrated it will begin to appear firm and crisp to the touch.

When you are watering, do it in the cool of the day. This is either early morning or late afternoon. This ensures your watering is much more effective and the lettuce is receiving its hydrating qualities.

If you water in the middle of the day when the sun is high you are really losing a lot of water to evaporation and can risk scorching your leaves.

How To Harvest Romaine Lettuce So It Keeps On Growing

Go you green thumbs. Time for harvest!

If you started with seedlings you are probably about 3 weeks into your Romaine Lettuce growing journey. If you started with seeds it’ll be more like 6-10 weeks but you can start harvesting leaves as it’s still growing.

To harvest, simply snip the outer leaves at the base one by one. This means you’ll only take what you need and the lettuce will continue to grow and produce more leaves.

If you need a large amount and want to harvest the whole head you can simply cut the entire head off at the base and still produce a second harvest.

When your lettuce starts to get ‘leggy’ and grow upwards quickly, throwing its seed stalk it is going to seed. This is also called ‘bolting’.

At this stage your lettuce will taste more bitter and the leaves will go tough. Bolting can occur prematurely in hot temperatures so look out for this. At this stage you can give any bitter leaves to your worms or compost. If you’re wondering about vermicompost vs compost you can find out more here.

There’s a few things you can do when your lettuce goes to seed.

Save the seed for next years crop
Leave the lettuce seeding in the ground as the flowers attract insects and bugs
Compost it all
Feed it to the chooks! (this is what we do, our chooks love lettuce).

Pests And Diseases To Be Aware Of

Pests and diseases tend to vary a bit depending on your climate and area but here’s some common diseases:

Downy Mildew
Soft Rot
Bacterial Spot
Black Root Rot
Anthracnose
Rhizoctonia
Botrytis (Grey Mold)
Sclerotinia Rot

And here are some common pests:

Cabbage Worm
Snails and Slugs
Grasshoppers
Crickets
Thrips
Aphids

There are a few simple tips on controlling pests and disease in Romaine lettuce that we like to follow.

Neem Oil. This is a naturally occurring pesticide and is successful in combating an aphid infestation as well as acting as a deterrent for other pests.

Snail and Slug traps. We set these in our raised garden bed to entice and trap any snails and slugs before they make it to our lettuce.

Using a raised garden bed can combat many pathogens.

Harvesting your leaves as they grow to keep them off resting on the damp soil.

Spacing them apart to encourage airflow can help prevent disease.

Our fruit and vegetable garden is chemical-free. However there are many chemicals available on the market to combat pests and diseases.

If you choose to use chemicals, we recommend you speak to a local expert and follow the instructions carefully.

How To Propagate Romaine Lettuce

Save your stalk! Whether you’ve grown it yourself or bought it whole. Keep the Stalk.
If it’s in your garden, leave it in moist soil and wait. The leaves will re-grow.
Otherwise, pop the stalk (about 1-2 inches) in water for about 48 hours. This allows it to hydrate.
You’ll notice the stalk begin to sprout new leaves.
Remove it from the water.
Plant it into your garden bed, watering it in to prevent shock.
Mulch around the lettuce to keep the moisture in the soil.
Enjoy your next harvest!

BONUS! Stuffed Romaine Lettuce Recipe

Yes our kids might eat our lettuce straight from the garden but they also love this quick and easy family friendly stuffed lettuce recipe.

You can basically use any protein you want to and substitute the veggies for what you have available but this is normally what we use.

Ingredients

500 grams of premium beef mince (sometimes we do half pork)

1 x red pepper (capsicum)

1 x brown onion finely diced

2 x garlic cloves minced

4 x tablespoons of tomato paste

Fresh cut herbs to tase

Salt and Pepper to taste

30 leaves of Romaine Lettuce

Method

Wash your lettuce leaves and lay on a towel to dry

Fry off your minced meat on med-high heat until browning

Add Onion until translucent

Add vegetables and herbs

When fragrant add tomato paste

Cook for 10-15 minutes

How To Eat Stuffed Lettuce Leaves

Romaine lettuce is firm and holds its ‘boat shape’ well. Just add a spoonful of your stuffed mix to your lettuce leaf.

Hold it in your hands and eat. Enjoy! (No dishes necessary) Hoorah!

cos lettuce rinsed and drying on a tea towel

FAQ’s

Do You Need To Start Spring Crops Indoors?

No. If you are in a mild-temperate climate your lettuce will grow year-round in your garden. Just ensure it is not in direct sunlight as this will make it prone to bolting.

If you are in a very cold climate prone to frost, you may wish to start your crop indoors on a sunny window sill and transplant it once the lettuce is established. This will help prevent frost damage.

If you are in a very warm, sunny climate you’ll want to avoid direct sunlight on your Romaine lettuce as it can make it taste bitter and encourage bolting. You can plant indoors or undercover so the lettuce is shaded.

Is Romaine Lettuce Hard To Grow?

No, Romaine lettuce is not hard to grow. It is an easy and fast growing crop and is nutritious and flavorful to eat.

You can leave the stalk for a second harvest or even collect seeds for planting next season.

If your children are eating lettuce straight from the garden you’re doing something right.

Can I Eat Romaine Lettuce On A Keto Diet?

Romaine Lettuce is good for Keto! So yes, you can eat it. It is full of fibre, vitamin C, Potassium, Magnesium and Folate.

You can see a breakdown of the nutritional content of Romaine Lettuce as advised by Healthline here.

Can Toddlers Eat Romaine Lettuce?

Yes. Romaine lettuce has plenty of nutrients that will benefit your children or toddler.

We find the best way to introduce it is to simply let them partake in the planting process and pick from the garden.

Otherwise you might like to let them explore crunchy strips with a sauce or dip. Our kids love lettuce with hummus.

Related Articles

So there you have it. Our Ultimate Guide To Growing and Harvesting Romaine Lettuce In 2023.

Romaine Lettuce is not a humble ingredient. It can be a salad show stopper!

We love growing Romaine lettuce in our backyard veggie patch. Our children enjoy it as well.

It is easy to grow and you can harvest it so that it keeps on growing. Bonus!

Romaine lettuce is nutritious and safe for toddlers and children to eat. It can also be incorporated into many yummy, family-friendly recipes.

It’s so important to learn how to grow your own produce and these skills will benefit your children for years to come.

So let’s get digging!