Salad Bowl
The most forgiving lettuce there is, and the one that turns a single sowing into six weeks of picking rather than ten days.
Salad Bowl makes no heart at all. It grows as an open rosette of soft, deeply lobed leaves that you pick from the outside for weeks on end, which changes the whole economics of a lettuce sowing. Instead of a row that is perfect for ten days and then bolts, you get a plant that keeps giving from June until the weather turns. In an Irish garden it also has the practical advantage of having no dense wet heart for slugs and grey mould to work on. The red form, Red Salad Bowl, is identical in habit and slightly slower.
Quick facts
- Botanical name
- Lactuca sativa
- Type
- Open pollinated
- Category
- Loose leaf, cut and come again
- Difficulty
- Easy, good first crop
- Hardiness
- Hardy, takes Irish frost
- In Ireland
- Cloche or fleece helps
- Germination
- 6 to 12 days at 10 to 20C
- Sowing depth
- 6mm
- Spacing
- 25cm apart, 30cm between rows
- Height
- 20cm
- Position
- Full sun
- Containers
- Grows well in pots
- Sowing to harvest
- 6 to 14 weeks
- Harvest
- May to November
- Award
- RHS Award of Garden Merit
Sowing and harvest calendar for Salad Bowl
Months shaded below are the reliable windows for Irish conditions.
Where to buy Salad Bowl lettuce seeds in Ireland
Irish suppliers that stock this, so postage stays domestic and seed arrives in time to sow. These are plain links, not paid placements.
Order online
- Brown Envelope Seeds Irish Organic seed grown and saved in West Cork Grows and saves its own certified organic seed in West Cork, so the varieties are already adapted to Irish conditions. Visit Brown Envelope Seeds , Co. Cork
- Quickcrop Irish Sowing months listed on every packet, ships nationwide Ballymote based, lists sowing and harvest months per product and ships across Ireland. Visit Quickcrop , Co. Sligo
- Seedaholic Irish Detailed growing notes on the packet, posted from Co. Galway Family run in Clonbur since 2005, deep heirloom range with detailed growing notes on every packet. Visit Seedaholic , Co. Galway
Why it suits Ireland
The reason to choose a loose leaf lettuce here is not flavour, it is architecture. A hearting lettuce holds moisture in a tight wrapped centre, which in an Irish autumn is where grey mould starts and where slugs shelter. An open rosette dries between showers and you can see what is going on inside it.
It also handles the practical reality of Irish weather planning. A hearting lettuce is ready on a particular week whether or not you want a salad that week. Salad Bowl waits, because you take what you need and leave the plant growing.
It is the variety to sow if you have never grown lettuce. There is no heart to fail to form, no precise cutting date, and a bad slug night takes some leaves rather than the whole crop.
Growing notes
Sow in modules or direct, thinly, from February under cover and March outdoors. For picking as individual leaves, thin to 15cm apart. For shearing as a cut and come again patch, sow in a broad band and leave the seedlings at 5cm apart, treating the row as a crop of leaves rather than a row of plants.
Feed matters more than with hearting types, because you are asking the plant to regrow repeatedly. A liquid seaweed or general feed after each cut noticeably improves the second and third flush.
Pick or shear in the morning while the leaves are firm. Take no more than half the leaves from any plant at one time, and never cut into the small central leaves, because that is the growing point and removing it ends the plant.
A late August sowing under a cloche will keep picking into November, though the leaves get smaller as the light goes. For a genuinely hardy winter supply, switch to Winter Density instead.
Common questions
How does cut and come again actually work?
Two ways, and both work with Salad Bowl. You can pick the outer leaves individually and leave the growing point untouched, which lets one plant supply a few leaves at a time for four to six weeks. Or you can shear the whole rosette off with scissors about 3cm above the ground and let it regrow, which gives two or three full cuts before the plant tires. Picking outer leaves gives a longer window; shearing gives bigger single harvests.
How many cuts will I get?
Two or three good shearings from a spring or early summer sowing, or six weeks of outer leaf picking. Each regrowth is smaller and slightly coarser than the last. Autumn sowings regrow much more slowly because of light levels rather than cold, so from September onwards treat each cut as if it may be the last.
Is Salad Bowl good in a container?
Very. It is shallow rooted and does not need the space a crisphead does, so a 20cm deep pot or trough sown thickly and picked as leaves works well, and lifting the crop off the ground helps enormously with slugs. Sow a fresh trough every three weeks and you will have leaves from May to October.
More lettuces to consider
Tom Thumb
Heirloom / Mini butterhead
The best lettuce for a container, a small plot or a first sowing with children, and it is ready faster than anything else.
Growing notes and stockistsWebb's Wonderful
Heirloom / Crisphead, iceberg type
The crunch of a shop bought iceberg with actual flavour, if you can give it space, water and a slug plan.
Growing notes and stockistsWinter Density
AGMOpen pollinated / Cos, winter hardy
The variety that puts lettuce on the table in December and January, and the reason an August sowing is worth remembering.
Growing notes and stockists