At this time of year, lettuces and salad leaves tend to grow quite quickly, and within two or three weeks of planting you may find you can start harvesting…
Once the plants have a good few larger outer leaves (like the lettuce pictured, for example) you can start harvesting lightly from each plant. Initially, just pick off the outer leaves leaving the baby leaves in the centre to grow on.
As growth speeds up, you can get a little more brutal: Clock the height of the baby leaves and grab the leaves into a bunch, using a pair of scissors to cut across just above the growing tip of the baby leaves so that the plant keeps growing. Watch our video for a demo so that you don’t end up cutting the baby leaves by mistake.
You’ll probably find you can harvest from each plant once or twice a week in the height of the summer. Even if you don’t use all the leaves that you harvest, you may decide to keep harvesting regularly to keep the plants productive for longer.