When you harvest the entire head, you may get one more set of leaf growth from the center of the plant, but it's unlikely you'll get a lot of further production. This is how the heads you purchase at the grocery store were harvested. Grab the leaves like you're gathering hair for a ponytail, and cut the entire plant at the base. Once you're nearing the end of your cool season, you can harvest the entire head of romaine. This is when the leaves will be in peak flavor. Speaking of the sweetest-tasting leaves, the best time of day to harvest from your lettuce plants is early in the morning. Continue harvesting from your romaine plant this way during the optimal growing window because this is when the leaves will taste their sweetest. Give each plant time to recover after a harvest before you cut more leaves. Always take the oldest, more mature leaves from the outside of the plant to encourage your plant to keep producing new leaves for you from the center. Treat your growing romaine plant as a cut-and-come-again salad green by cutting leaves one at a time. Romaine needs 70 to 75 days to grow a full head, but you can begin harvesting leaves from the outside of your plant sooner than that. Harvest Romaine Leaves from Your Plants Frequently When this happens, it's time to toss your plant in the compost bin and start again when the weather gets cooler. These changes happen because the plant is bolting and focusing only on seed production. You'll also notice a change in the plant's shape once the conditions are no longer optimal for growth. Once it grows too hot outside, your plant will start to produce a milky white substance, which doesn't harm you but will affect the flavor. If you’re trying to grow romaine into the warmer parts of the year, plant some taller plants around it to give it some shade. If you're starting it indoors, keep in mind that it will be a bit fragile to transplant into the garden later on. You can start romaine from seed in the garden or indoors before your final frost date. In the spring, wait until the threat of frost has gone. It's best to grow romaine in the spring and the fall. Romaine grows really well during the cool season (it loves temperatures between 45 and 75 degrees F), but unlike a lot of other lettuces, romaine can usually tolerate some heat. (Prefer to listen? Check out episode 6, "Romaine Calm", of the Grow Your Self podcast here.) coli and salmonella recalls on the news when you grow your own. So, try to romaine calm when I tell you how easy it is to grow one of the most popular kinds of lettuce right in your own backyard (or on a balcony!).Īdded bonus: you don't have to worry about all those E. You're going to get leaves that taste so much better than ones that have been sitting in a plastic box for two weeks. Not only are you getting leaves at the peak of their flavor and nutrition when you grow and harvest your own, you're also cutting down on food miles and fuel usage. That being said, you haven't really tasted romaine until you've had it fresh from the garden, not trucked in from California or Arizona, where 99 percent of all the romaine found in our grocery stores is grown. Not only can it withstand both hotter and colder temps than some of the other more tender leafy greens, it's also more durable after harvesting, making it an easy leaf to put on grocery store shelves. Romaine is one of the hardiest salad greens that you can grow. It is, after all, one of the four most popular types of lettuce (along with crisp head, butter head, and loose leaf) and has long been the star of Caesar salads.Īnd it's popular for good reason. I'm guessing you've probably eaten your fair share of romaine lettuce, also known as cos lettuce in other English-speaking parts of the world.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |