How to harvest butter lettuce – an expert grower reveals 2 ways to get multiple pickings from your plants

While it may go by several names, the one thing that all fans of butter lettuce can agree on is that its sweet flavor and soft texture that melts in the mouth set it apart from other types. Whether you know it as butter lettuce, butterhead lettuce, bibb lettuce, or Boston lettuce, the tender, buttery leaves are perfect for salads, sandwiches, or wraps.

Heads of butter lettuce may be common in grocery stores, but homegrown always tastes so much better. Growing lots of lettuce at home can be quick and simple, plus, with some clever picking, you can get multiple harvests of butter lettuce from one plant.

As a professional kitchen gardener and passionate home grower, I have cultivated and harvested many types of lettuce. I always prefer to harvest lettuce as a cut-and-come-again crop whenever I can, as it guarantees lots of pickings over the season. Here, I look closely at when and how to harvest butter lettuce, including explaining the two different ways to harvest butter lettuce so it keeps growing for more harvests.

When and how to harvest butter lettuce

When you know how to grow lettuce, you can easily grow many different varieties from seed for low-cost homegrown harvests. With many types of lettuces, you can pick them as baby leaves or wait a bit longer for mature heads – and that is the case for butter lettuce. So let’s start with how long you need to wait to harvest butter lettuce.

When to harvest butter lettuce

Butter lettuce is typically grown from seed in spring, either by planting lettuce seeds directly into the ground after the last frosts or starting indoors around four weeks before for earlier harvests.

The alternative is to buy young plants from nurseries or garden centers to plant lettuce directly into the ground, raised beds, or containers. Butter lettuce, whether grown from seed or purchased, is planted in spring for late spring and summer harvests or in early fall for late-season pickings.

Butter lettuce is a fast-growing vegetable that can be harvested within one month of sowing the seeds. The earliest harvests of baby leaves can happen within a few weeks, once the leaves are large enough to use.

Alternatively, butter lettuce plants will reach maturity in 50-60 days once the head reaches 6-8 inches. The largest, outer leaves surround a loose rosette of inner ones.

How to harvest butter lettuce so it keeps growing

There are two potential ways to harvest better lettuce, and both can provide more than one harvest. You can harvest lettuce as a cut-and-come-again crop for an extended period, or cut the entire head and hopefully get a second harvest afterwards.

My preferred method of harvesting is the former, to treat butter lettuce as a cut-and-come-again crop.

Once the outer leaves reach at least 2-3 inches long, you can start picking them. This gives you regular, small harvests for salads or sandwiches and allows the smaller, inner leaves to continue to develop for future pickings.

Cut the outer leaves with a sharp knife, gardening snips, or pruning shears, or carefully pinch the leaves from the plant using your fingers.

Don’t get too carried away and remove too many leaves at a time. This harvesting mistake can stress the lettuce and affect the future development of the inner leaves.

The other way to harvest butter lettuce is to cut the entire head of the plant once the leaves reach full maturity. Cut the head of lettuce using a sharp knife a couple of inches above the soil level.

If you leave the stub in the ground and keep the soil moist, it can resprout and provide a second harvest of smaller leaves a few weeks later.

FAQs

How many times can you harvest butter lettuce?

If you harvest butter lettuce as a cut-and-come-again crop, you can get four or more harvests of leaves compared to two harvests if you cut the entire head. The harvests you get will depend on weather conditions, the time of year, and whether any pests trouble your lettuces.

Can you eat bolted butter lettuce?

Butter lettuces tend to bolt when temperatures increase in the summer. This sees the cool-season crop send up a central stalk as it starts to flower and go to seed (caused by warm temperatures and dry soil), and the leaves will turn bitter.

If you act quickly once it starts to bolt, you can continue to eat the leaves. However, if left too late, the thick central stalk is formed, and the choice is to let the plant go and harvest lettuce seeds, or remove it from the garden and add it to the compost pile.

A very different type of lettuce to grow is Romaine lettuce, which produces tall, upright heads with a thick midrib and is hugely popular for Caesar salads. Despite their differences in size and shape, you can also harvest Romaine lettuce as a cut-and-come-again type or cut the entire head 1-2 inches from the base.