MONTY DON

Monty Don’s pals benefit from his bumper lettuce crop each year – here he explains how you can take a leaf out of his book

If you’re thinking of rustling up one of our salads, let our gardening expert advise you on how to grow the most delicious lettuce

My aim is to eat salad leaves from the garden at least once a day, with as wide an assortment as possible but nearly always with lettuce as the key component. If you also factor in lettuce eaten by my family and friends, plus those that bolt and end up either being fed to the chickens or thrown on the compost heap, I suspect we grow at least 1,000 lettuce plants a year. Over 40-odd years that makes for a fair bit of experience.

Back in the 1960s when I was growing up, lettuce was invariably accompanied by hardboiled eggs (which I hated and still dislike to this day), beetroot and tomato and served with salad cream or, on special occasions, homemade mayonnaise. The concept of a green salad or even salad dressing was still lodged on the other side of the Channel.

But fresh lettuce, picked, washed, dried and eaten within the hour, accompanied only by good olive oil and either balsamic vinegar or lemon juice, salt and pepper, is a dish worthy of anyone. I never tire of it.

Of course there is lettuce and lettuce. In fact there are four kinds of lettuce – cos (or romaine), loose-leaf, butterhead and crisphead (or iceberg).

Cos are the most common and include garden favourites like ‘Little Gem’ and ‘Lobjoits Green’; I also grow a good red cos and ‘Winter Density’. The leaves grow upright and tight and the combination of crispness and rich flavour makes it a must for any garden anywhere.

Loose-leaf lettuce have the advantage of being ‘cut and come again’, meaning you can cut off some leaves and it will regrow for another harvest or even two. I grow ‘Green Oakleaf’ and ‘Red Oak Leaf’ as well as green and red ‘Salad Bowl’ and ‘Cocarde’. The one to avoid is ‘Lollo Rossa’, which is tasteless.

Butterhead lettuce are, as the name suggests, soft, buttery and – when eaten very fresh – lovely. They include ‘Tom Thumb’ (hardy, very small and delicious), ‘Marvel Of Four Seasons’ and ‘All The Year Round’.

Crisphead, or iceberg, lettuce have a bad name due to the watery tastelessness of most mass-produced specimens. But I grow ‘Webbs Wonderful’ and ‘Saladin’ and both are very good. They are the hardest lettuce to grow in the UK but the secret is to harvest them quite small – the size of a grapefruit – and eat them within a day of cutting. Whatever type of lettuce you like to eat, the following method ensures good germination, slug protection and a steady year-round supply.

I start by sowing the seed in a seed tray and put it to germinate in the greenhouse (a cool windowsill or porch is just as good). When the seedlings are large enough to handle I prick them out individually into plugs. I then put these into a cold frame, open to the elements but where I can check daily for slugs. This

ensures that each lettuce grows strongly and well from the very beginning.

When they are big enough to be lifted from the plug with the roots holding the compost together, I plant them out in a grid with each plant spaced about 23cm apart. This results in much less wastage of seed than when sowing direct, while also giving each lettuce enough room to grow strongly – which deters slug attack. Using seed sparingly also makes successive small crops more viable and avoids bolting, which is a likely occurrence in hot, dry weather.