After a year when I never did get around to cleaning up the lettuce from one of my beds, I made some observations on how beneficial my laziness actually was. If you don’t need space in your garden for another crop, I’ve learned that there are several benefits to leaving your lettuce to go to seed after they’ve bolted. For our own garden, I take a “cut and come again” approach to harvesting lettuce which allows the roots and enough leaves to remain that when the summer heat becomes oppressive, the leaves turn bitter, and if left, will quickly bolt and produce seed.
Here are 7 reasons why you should let your lettuce go to seed:
{Reduces Soil Erosion}
Particularly if you don’t use a mulch to cover the soil, the roots work to hold the soil structure intact and reduce erosion. Before we moved into our new home, the previous owner had a pond dug at the bottom of the property. It never held water. The reason was they never dug beyond the topsoil! Here at the top of the hill where my gardens are, you need only dig down a few inches to get past the layer of topsoil. It has all washed away down to the bottom of the hill. I’m hoping that through diligent composting, using lots of manure, hay mulching, and cover cropping we’ll eventually be able to rebuild the topsoil, but in the meantime I also have to be very proactive not to literally let my efforts run downhill.
{Zero-Work Garden}
When you allow your lettuce to go to seed, much of it will drop to the ground and spring up when your stalks are dying back. If you let your spring greens go to seed, your fall garden will come to life right on time. I’ll allow them to reseed in the same spot once before harvesting the seed and manually sowing them in a new, rotated location.
{Composting}
Those 4-foot tall stalks will add more mass while providing aeration to your compost pile. Obviously, the more material you put in your heap, the more compost you’ll make. And it’s important to keep a decent airflow in your pile because an airless pile can’t support the soil critters that do the work of decomposing and these stalks will do a great job at aeration.
What ways are working to improve your garden?
Collect and harvest those seeds too. You never know what Mother Nature might throw at you and you might need them down the line.
I was thinking the same thing as Sheri, another benefit is that you get all those free seeds. I never let my lettuce go to seed so I don't know how hard is it to collect those tiny ones.
Great post, thanks!