Butterhead Lettuce
Butterhead lettuce are great to grow especially in the UK. Butterhead lettuce are known for how easy they are to grow. Anyone should be able to grow them, whether it be in an allotment or in the garden in pots. Butterhead lettuce can withstand cold weather is it is ideal to grow in the UK with it’s fluctuating temperatures. When picking butterhead lettuce start from the outer leaves and work your way inside.
Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book
Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-
You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.
Butterhead Lettuce Varieties
There are many different varieties of butterhead lettuce that you can try growing in the garden and allotment. These are the varieties that you can try growing:-
All Year Round
As the name of this lettuce suggests you can actually grow it most of the year. If you have a polytunnel and its warm inside you can extend the gardening season by growing it inside. All year round lettuce is the main variety of butterhead lettuce.
Arctic King
Arctic King lettuce is one of the toughest lettuces that you can grow. For this lettuce sow the seeds in autumn and start picking the leaves from the arctic king lettuce in spring.
Clarion
Clarion lettuce can be sown in Spring all the way through to Summer. This lettuce is extremely tasty and its resistant to most diseases which is great. The leaves on the clarion lettuce is a light green colour.
Diana
Diana lettuce is a lettuce that is resistant to bolting, there is nothing worse than loosing all your lettuce to bolting. This is a great choice for that summer crop.
Marvel of four seasons
This variety of lettuce will grow for quite a few months providing you with lots of tasty leaves. Marvel of four seasons lettuce originally came from France and dates back to over 1885.
Roxy
This lettuce has attractive leaves with reddish ends. Creating a bit of colour to the vegetable patch and also to the salad bowl rather than it just all being green.
Sangria
Sangria Lettuce has great texture and taste and is resistant to bolting. It changes colour when growing from green to a purple colour.
Tom Thumb
Tom Thumb lettuce is a variety that everyone should grow as it is hardy to the cold. You can either grow it for the full heads or pick off a few leaves at a time. You can plant this variety in early spring under clotches or indoors ready to transplant outdoors.
How to grow butterhead lettuce
Butterhead lettuce is a great variety of lettuce to grow providing great crops in the garden. You can pick the leaves as and when you require them. When growing lettuce it needs to be grown in full sun. You have to keep your eyes on the lettuce though as to much heat can cause the leaves on the lettuce to wilt or the plants to bolt and start seeding.
Lettuce is not that fussy when growing it in soil. It does however like to be grown in loose soil that is well drained. Keep the soil weed free when growing lettuce as it will not like competing with the weeds.
How to sow butterhead lettuce seeds
When sowing the butterhead lettuce seeds either sow them in seed trays in the greenhouse where it is warmer for a better germination or once it has warmed up outdoors you can sow the seeds directly outdoors in rows in the garden or allotment.
Transplanting butterhead lettuce
When your lettuce seeds have started germinating in the seed trays or in your rows in the allotment and garden you can transplant them when they are big enough to handle and survive the transplant.
If you have started your seeds in seed trays first when they have got big enough transplant your lettuce to plant pots so that the lettuce can grow bigger and stronger before planting outdoors. Once the butterhead lettuce are big enough plant outdoors in rows. Plant the lettuce in spaces of around 18 inches so that it has plenty of space to grow. Lettuce can take up quite a bit of room.
If you are growing your lettuce in rows outdoors when the lettuce is big enough to handle you will need to transplant you lettuce to the final growing positions. Plant the lettuce in rows at round 18 inches apart so that it gives them enough room to grow in the garden. If it is cold outside cover your butterhead lettuce with clotches to help it grow and to keep it warm – you don’t want the frost killing it off.
Looking after your butterhead lettuce
To look after your lettuce you will need to keep the soil moist as it has shallow roots on the lettuce. Keep sowing lettuce every few weeks so that you have a succession of leaves regularly.
We hope that you have found these tips useful for growing butterhead lettuce. You can find lots more tips and advice for growing fruit and vegetables here
