Cut and Come Again Lettuce - Easy

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Tried for the first time this year.

I got a packet of seeds free in a magazine and sprinkled them in a small seed tray.

Idea is you don’t wait for a head of lettuce to form but just cut leaves when you want them, leaving the central part which will grow more leaves. Packet says that you can do this four times, so I planted another tray of seeds two months after the first but the first is still producing. The first tray’s leaves are now shorter and a more intense colour.

These two produce more than enough leaves for our family. They’re dead easy to grow, no thing or transplanting needed, just keeping them watered.

Variety is Lettuce Salad Bowl Red – with an oak leaf shape and they turn red as they grow. Leaves in the first planted tray are now much deeper red . First tray planted 9 April, second on 6 June.

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How do they taste?

Looks great!

Love stuff like this. They look great and it is much less wasteful, and best of all you get to eat fresh leaves when you want them.
I planted some perpetual spinach about three years ago and it is still going strong, just pick what you need;
even when the leaves get quite large they don't get bitter.
These sorts of plants are particularly good for small households like ours where we are just two.

How do they taste?

Good*, slightly peppery.

I often pluck a leaf and eat it when I'm in the garden.

Only reason I'm growing that variety is I got given the packet but the principle holds for any mix of ettuce, peas shoots etc, aka mesclun (a term I only encountered this winter in NZ.

*if it didn't, we wouldn't be eating it

Last year grew curly kale, fouth the cabbage white butterflys that laid eggs on it even though netted but after all that when I proundly picked and cooked the leaves the family wouldn't eat them. I didn't like them either.