Please Lettuce Explain

Tips for ‘Harvesting’ Seeds from Favorite Leafy Veggies

Have you ever wondered where seeds come from your favorite veggies? Some are obvious. For instance, if you cut open a tomato, you can easily see the seeds. But how about leafy vegetables, like lettuce?

Lettuce likes the cooler weather months in the early spring and fall months. In the spring, eventually warmer temps kick in and, if you haven't harvested your lettuce yet, it will start to "bolt," which means it will send up a flower stalk and go to seed.

As you can see in the pictures below, the lettuce will grow tall and almost look like Christmas trees in the process! It is still edible at this stage, but will increasingly taste more bitter as it is putting its energy into going to seed. After additional time has passed, little yellow flowers develop and, after pollination, dandelion-like fluffy seed heads will begin to form on top.

If you're interested in saving the seeds, when about half of the flowers have closed and reopened as fluffy seed heads, you can cut the plant's main stem and bring it inside to finish drying. At this point you can either stand them up in a box or basket and let the seeds fall onto a sheet or tarp. Alternatively, you can place it upside down (seeds facing down), into a paper bag. Put the paper bag in a dark, cool place to allow the seeds to dry.

You may want to sort out some of the sticks, fluff, and chaff to allow the seed to fully dry and store longer. Simply rubbing the seed and chaff between your hands and gently blowing the lighter chaff away can be effective. This can also be done by sifting with an appropriate sized screen and pouring seed between containers in front of a fan. Just a few plants can produce an abundant quantity of lettuce seed for future sowing and sharing.