Rising lettuce is quite a bit like getting together with individuals. You need to watch out to not anticipate an excessive amount of, with out anticipating too little, both.
Some gardeners need this cool-season vegetable to maintain producing in scorching climate, for instance, and that’s simply not doable.
However you might not be conscious you possibly can depend on most sorts of Lactuca sativa to continue to grow as freezing temperatures set in, with some assist from you, the gardener.
You will want to guard most sorts from frost.
However if you do, you possibly can anticipate this species to provide child leaves and even full-size heads nicely into late autumn or winter, occasions of 12 months when contemporary greens are so welcome.
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I’d prefer to encourage you to ask extra out of your lettuce within the cool months, however solely after giving it what it wants to withstand frost or survive gentle freezes.
You’ll be joyful to listen to it’s a lot simpler to get your crop to fulfill the expectation that it’s going to survive via a frost than it may be to get a human to begin selecting up their socks or waking up on time!
I’ll provide you with some pointers that may make the expertise straightforward.
Right here’s what I’ll cowl:
Is Lettuce Chilly Tolerant?
Lettuce isn’t any Russian kale, which might develop merrily alongside when temps plummet to -10°F.
It’s additionally much less cold-hardy than most different cole crop leafy greens, together with spinach, some mustards, and child leaf brassicas.
However it’s a quintessential cool-season crop, and a few varieties develop fairly nicely even when the temperature dips beneath freezing.
Jim Myers, plant breeder and researcher at Oregon State College, describes lettuce as “semi-hardy” greens, ones that may do okay in gentle frost, when air temperatures vary from 28 to 32°F.
Most sorts develop finest in temperatures from 55 to 65°F, however should you “harden” the crops by introducing them regularly to progressively colder temperatures.
Many leaf varieties and a few butterhead and crisphead sorts will face up to the chilly down to twenty°F.
There are additionally quite a few cultivars which were bred or chosen to outlive actually low temperatures, like -30°F, and I’ll share a few these varieties right here in a minute.
However first let’s think about the typical lettuce.
Most sorts can often sail via the occasional gentle frost, which happens when temperatures are at or just a bit beneath 32°F with a low dew level, and ice crystals start to type.
However they require particular measures on the a part of the gardener to resist exhausting frosts, when the air is colder than 28°F, or throughout exhausting freezes, when temps beneath 25°F final for 4 or extra consecutive hours.
When you’re rising your common backyard selection lettuce, keep tuned for frost safety ideas.
When you haven’t determined what to develop but however are severe about rising salad greens nicely into the frosty months, you could need to look into some that may be harvested as child leaves for salad, even in chilly climate.
Just a few choices embrace mizuna, arugula, and spinach. Discover extra recommendations in our information.
Finest Varieties to Develop in Chilly Climate
When you often consider backyard lettuce in generic phrases, it’s worthwhile to acknowledge that every one varieties will not be created equal for rising in frosty circumstances.
The leaf varieties that you simply lower regularly via the season are typically extra chilly hardy than butterhead or crisphead sorts, for instance.
They’re additionally extra tolerant of the shade that’s extra prevalent via the shorter days of autumn and winter.
For a wholesome harvest after the arrival of first frost, it’s additionally necessary to select those that may mature nicely forward of steady exhausting freezes in mid-winter.
When you can defend your crop from frost up to a degree, even the perfect mulched or lined greens will ultimately succumb to sustained intervals of freezing climate.
Make sure you examine the seed packet for its “days to maturity” information forward of sowing. This will vary from 40 to 70 days, or typically extra, so select correctly.
Understand that child greens shall be prepared to select extra rapidly, and conversely, that greens additionally are inclined to develop extra slowly in cooler temperatures.
Relying on how chilly your winters are and if you anticipate the arrival of extended intervals of exhausting freezes, you’ll need to sow a spread that may mature in both early fall, late fall, or early winter.
When you’re decided to develop lettuce within the chilly months and stay in a colder rising space, you could need to go for one of many cold-adapted varieties which were bred to develop in northern climates.
They’re typically a sensible choice for individuals who need to overwinter lettuce in a hoop home or beneath row cowl in areas with extra average winter temps, too.
Listed below are three cold-adapted cultivars to think about:
Grand Rapids
This one’s excellent for the winter salad bowl. A well-liked unfastened leaf selection, ‘Grand Rapids’ produces a rosette of shiny inexperienced, frilly leaves with a gentle, flippantly candy taste.
It’s famend for its chilly hardiness, producing vigorously at temperatures nicely beneath freezing.
This can be a good choice to develop all winter lengthy in an unheated hoop home or chilly body.
It may possibly additionally thrive in low-light circumstances, which makes it an appropriate choice for rising within the quick days of autumn and winter, or beneath a row cowl that doesn’t let in as a lot gentle as unprotected crops would obtain.
‘Grand Rapids’
This chilly climate alternative additionally grows fairly rapidly, producing child leaves which might be prepared for harvest 30 days after germination, and full-size leaves about three weeks after that.
That may be an enormous benefit if Jack Frost arrives early in your space.
‘Grand Rapids’ seeds can be found in varied bundle sizes starting from one gram packets to 25-pound sacks, from True Leaf Market.
Nice Lakes 118
This is without doubt one of the crisphead, or iceberg, lettuces bred particularly for northern growers. It’s frost resistant and produces dense heads that attain six inches in diameter in 68 to 82 days.
When you like, you possibly can harvest the darkish inexperienced outer leaves a number of at a time earlier than selecting the entire crisp head at maturity.
‘Nice Lakes 118’
Those that develop veggies in gentle climates can sow ‘Nice Lakes 118’ in fall and winter for a year-round harvest.
It’ll germinate in soil temperatures as cool as 40°F, although the best out of doors sowing temperature is 60 to 70°F.
‘Nice Lakes 118’ seeds can be found in one-gram packets from Botanical Pursuits.
Lollo Rosso
This cultivar gives a rosy colour together with chilly resistance. Bred to be grown in cooler areas in Zones 4 to 9, ‘Lollo Rosso’ produces ruffled, magenta leaves with inexperienced bases.
‘Lollo Rosso’
They attain full dimension 50 to 70 days from sowing, however the outer leaves could be harvested as soon as they attain an inch tall at about 21 days.
Seeds can be found in packets and in bulk from True Leaf Market.
In fact, you may also improve your odds of an early winter lettuce harvest by planting a few transportable containers with a unfastened leaf mix in late summer season.
Unfastened Leaf Mix
That kind thrives in “salad bowl” plantings, and should you’re nonetheless chopping greens when the chilly climate arrives, you possibly can merely deliver the pot right into a sunny kitchen to complete the expansion cycle and harvest.
A five-variety unfastened leaf mix is out there in 15,000-seed packets from Burpee.
Take a look at our information to 29 of the perfect lettuce varieties to be taught extra.
How Chilly Impacts Lettuce Vegetation
What does it imply once we say lettuce is “frost hardy?”
The label takes under consideration various kinds of freezing climate.
Frost happens when the air has sufficient moisture and the temperature cools to a temperature the place dew types on leaves and stems.
If the temperature additionally dips beneath 32°F at floor stage, frost types.
With gentle frost, which happens at temperatures which might be simply barely freezing, the water contained in the cell partitions may freeze, however most likely not.
A tough frost, when the ground-level temps sink to twenty-eight°F or decrease, could make plant tissue begin forming ice.
Lettuce can often tolerate at the very least a few exhausting frosts, particularly should you’ve taken steps to harden off the seedlings and hold the soil heat.
A lightweight freeze is outlined as any time temperatures are within the 28 to 32°F vary, and a tough freeze happens beneath 28°F.
If the air is moist sufficient, freezing on this vary may additionally contain frost, however it’s not a given.
Lettuce might deal with gentle freezing and even one or two exhausting freezes, however as soon as the thermometer reads 25°F or beneath, the crops are in peril.
That stage of chilly causes ice to type within the plant tissue, whatever the quantity of moisture within the air. Because the water expands, it causes cell partitions to burst.
Greater than 4 hours of these harsh circumstances will kill most kinds of lettuce, pronto.
You’ll know that lettuce has succumbed if you see blisters and tan, lifeless splotches on the outer leaves. There’s no getting back from that sort of freeze harm.
However you might be able to forestall this, at the very least till temperatures are constantly beneath 20°F.
Learn on for some frost-proofing methods that may work to increase the season to your crop at the very least a few occasions.
I do need to point out that these ways are solely value utilizing when you may have loads of lettuce rising, and anticipate a return to extra ideally suited rising circumstances inside a day or so.
As soon as your space begins experiencing ongoing exhausting freezes, or should you’ve solely bought a number of stray leaves left, it’s not a great use of your time or assets to maintain attempting to develop lettuce in frozen floor, nevertheless many covers you may need to make use of for the aim.
When you’re serious about overwintering lettuce in chilly areas, you’ll most likely want a greenhouse or at the very least a hoop home and extra row covers.
Frost and Freeze Precautions
If Jack Frost hasn’t already made an look in your vegetable backyard and you’ve got the posh of preplanning, a number of methods will assist to forestall frost or freeze harm when chilly climate does arrive.
You’ll need to present well-draining soil, for instance, so water gained’t pool after which freeze the crops’ roots.
It’s additionally a good suggestion to get yourself up to speed together with your space’s common first and final frost dates, and be aware them in your gardening journal or with a cellular phone reminder.
That method, you possibly can plan when to sow varieties which have completely different timetables for maturing, so that you gained’t unintentionally plant lettuce that gained’t be prepared to select and eat earlier than the climate turns ornery.
While you’re planning out your timeline for harvest, keep in mind that the expansion charge will gradual because the soil cools, so add per week or two to the expected variety of days to maturity if you’re rising in temps beneath 55°F.
Ideally, you’ll be capable to time your late summer season or early fall sowing so that you simply’ll be harvesting child leaf lettuce within the first days of sunshine or exhausting frost.
The youthful leaves of a unfastened leaf salad combine are much less prone to maintain ice or frost harm than mature lettuce heads.
Give your seedlings an opportunity to get used to the cooler temperatures, too.
You possibly can’t anticipate them to outlive even a light-weight freeze should you’ve simply transplanted them, or in the event that they’ve solely simply sprouted.
The perfect methodology is to sow a month forward of the typical first frost, or transplant at the very least a few weeks earlier than that date.
That timing permits the seedlings to get used to progressively cooler temperatures.
Lettuce that has been hardened off might be able to survive a number of bouts of temperatures as little as 20°F, particularly should you additionally make use of row covers and mulch.
Winter mulch is essential to serving to lettuce survive frost and frigid climate. And putting it nicely forward of the bottom freezing or the arrival of cooling temperatures is simply as necessary.
Your objective is to maintain the soil heat, and hold it from freezing for so long as doable.
Cowl the lettuce patch with a two- to three-inch layer of natural materials. Place it over the naked soil and as much as about an inch from the principle stems or unfastened leaves.
Wooden chips, straw, or pine needles are all good selections. Simply ensure that the mulch hasn’t been sprayed with herbicides and doesn’t embrace black walnut chips, because the juglone they include can kill the lettuce or leach into the bottom and harm subsequent 12 months’s crops.
Be taught extra winter mulching strategies in our information.
As soon as the crops are within the floor and the chilly climate units in, watch out about watering. Give lettuce supplemental water provided that the soil is dry right down to at the very least an inch.
Make certain to water on the soil line, not from above. Any water that splashes on the leaves can freeze and destroy the plant tissue.
Water in midafternoon, to offer the soil an opportunity to soak up the water earlier than nightfall, when the air and soil each begin to cool and will probably freeze.
Protecting Measures
As soon as a tough frost or temperatures beneath 25°F are predicted, forewarning and protecting covers are your finest bets.
First rule: Comply with a dependable meteorologist or climate middle as close to to your location as doable, so you possibly can anticipate frost and freezing temps and take precautions.
Backyard blankets or floating row covers are each moderately priced, and you may assist these with wire or metallic hoops, or bent PVC hoops.
To be taught extra about row cowl choices, seek the advice of our information.
It’s also possible to make do with widespread home goods for the covers if an impending frost caught you unaware within the fall.
You may tent sections of newspapers, gentle bedsheets, clear drop cloths, or towels over a row of bamboo stakes or tomato cages, for instance.
Or lay these supplies proper over the rosettes, leaves, or heads, with out letting the covers contact the greens.
If they arrive into contact, the leaves will most likely be broken, however they might nonetheless survive the chilly temps.
Make certain the duvet materials reaches right down to the bottom to retain warmth.
Maintain it anchored with bricks, rocks, or gadgets with an analogous weight. I’ve used gallon milk jugs crammed with water to maintain the covers from blowing away.
Different protectors to make use of in a pinch embrace sanitized buckets, clay flower pots, or small cardboard bins upended to cowl the crops.
Conduct the coverup after the noon solar has waned however earlier than nightfall, to seize the radiant warmth saved within the backyard soil beneath the duvet.
Apply covers too early, and also you danger trapping a lot warmth that your crops wilt. However should you wait till after darkish, that warmth has already escaped again into the ambiance.
There’s a follow-up step, too. As soon as the frost thaws the following day, rapidly take away the covers so the warmth buildup doesn’t scald or wilt the lettuce.
Lettuce Eat Salad within the Cool Months
Having lettuce obtainable to select contemporary from the backyard after icy climate arrives provides my vegetable-loving soul one thing to look ahead to in early winter.
After I’m tossing a inexperienced salad to get pleasure from with consolation meals lasagna, or arranging our conventional spicy chilled shrimp on a mattress of child leaves for Christmas Eve brunch, I’m all the time glad I took the additional steps to maintain my lettuce thriving in frosty climate.
What about you? Do you develop these tasty greens in low temperatures? Please add any ideas or questions that you must the remark part beneath.
And should you discovered this data useful however need extra tips about rising lettuce in different seasons, learn these guides subsequent:
© Ask the Specialists, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. See our TOS for extra particulars. Initially revealed November 3, 2021. Final up to date October 13, 2026. Product pictures by way of Botanical Pursuits, Burpee, and True Leaf Market. Uncredited pictures: Shutterstock.
