When to sow lamb's lettuce

Lamb's lettuce is a winter salad. The main sowing season runs from mid-July to mid-September: early sowings are ready in autumn, later ones stand through winter and are picked from December to March, when little else is growing.

The seed germinates best at 50–68°F. In hot, dry spells in July and August it comes up poorly or not at all, so in a heatwave wait for cooler weather, or keep the row shaded and moist.

Sow two or three batches a couple of weeks apart and you'll have rosettes at different sizes through the winter. You can also sow in March and April; that crop is ready by May but runs to flower soon after, as the days lengthen.

Lamb's lettuce is undemanding: any reasonably humus-rich soil in sun or light shade will do, and it is an ideal follow-on for a bed cleared in summer. It is unrelated to most vegetables, so it fits almost anywhere in your rotation.

Sow in rows 4–6 in apart, 0.2–0.4 in deep, or up to 0.8 in if the soil is dry. Then press the rows down firmly, with a board if you have one: the seed needs good contact with the soil, and a level surface makes cutting easier later.

Keep the seedbed moist until the seedlings are up, which takes one to two weeks. Don't sow too thickly, or the rosettes stay small and the lower leaves turn yellow; thin to about 4 in. A 120 × 80 cm raised bed takes five to eight rows, about 60 to 90 rosettes.

To fill gaps quickly, raise plants in module trays and plant them out after about four weeks, when they are some 1.2 in tall, 5 in apart and only half as deep as the root ball.

Lamb's lettuce is a light feeder and needs no extra fertiliser in a bed that has had compost. In winter it needs little water.

It is very hardy and survives hard frost, especially under snow. In long spells of bare frost, cover the rows with fleece or conifer brushwood, and take the cover off again on milder days so the leaves don't stay damp and go mouldy.

Water in the morning rather than the evening in autumn, so the leaves dry before night; that makes downy mildew less likely.

Summer sowings are ready in as little as five to seven weeks; later sowings take eight to twelve as growth slows in the cold. Pick from October through winter to about March, on frost-free days.

Cut whole rosettes just above the soil with a knife, or pick the outer leaves for a cut-and-come-again harvest.

Lamb's lettuce wilts quickly once cut, so harvest just before you eat it.

Downy mildew is the main disease, especially in wet autumns. Choose a mildew-tolerant variety; seed catalogues mark them, and 'Gala' and 'Favor' are two widely sold examples. Grey mould and powdery mildew can also appear in damp, crowded rows.

Aphids and, on young seedlings, slugs and snails are the usual pests. In winter slugs are no longer active.

Lamb's lettuce belongs to the honeysuckle family (formerly the valerian family), so it doesn't share diseases with the usual vegetable groups. Still, don't grow it on the same bed two years running, to keep leaf fungi from building up.

Because lamb's lettuce is small and grows in the cool season, it rarely competes with anything. It is often sown into beds where summer crops have just finished. Specific 'good neighbour' claims for it are tradition; we found no trials behind them.