The Secret to Crisp Garden Lettuce

for at least 5 days after harvest

I spent years growing beautiful lettuces only to throw them away a day after harvest. They’d get soggy, floppy, and wilted. Not appetizing. This is one of the many times that I’ve wondered how commercial farmers and grocery stores are growing and selling perfect produce. How are people growing carrots that are the length of my forearm?

After a few weeks in a row of throwing away lettuce, I stopped harvesting it until right before I was going to eat it. That worked, until it didn’t.

I mostly grow leaf lettuce and mostly for my use (not for market), so that’s the context for this post. While some of the varieties I grow would form loose heads, I primarily treat it like a cut & come again crop. This means the more you harvest it, the longer your harvest period will be. While bolting (when a plant goes to flower) will happen eventually, regular harvesting will prolong the onset.

This is where I went wrong with my “harvest when I need it” methodology. Weeks would stretch between meaningful harvests because I simply didn’t have the time to harvest and wash a significant amount for dinners at the last minute. I’m a working mom on top of being a homestead gardener, and that sometimes means that the garden takes the backseat.

Last year, I discovered the secret to harvesting a basketful of lettuce at once, washing it, and keeping it crisp and fresh for at least 5 days, if not longer.

It’s ice.

Shocked? That’s basically what I do to my lettuce.

Here’s the process:

1. Harvest lettuce.

2. Fill a large bowl with cold water. Add the lettuce and mix it around. You may need to do this in batches as there must be enough room for the water to really slosh around. Drain and repeat until the water is fairly free of debris.

3. Fill the bowl one last time, add a whole tray of ice cubes, and finally add your clean lettuce. Slosh the lettuce around again, letting it sit in the very very cold water for at least a full minute.

4. Drain and set lettuce in a single layer on a clean kitchen towel. Don’t let it sit too long - you want the lettuce to stay cold. The fluctuation from warm garden to ice-cold water bath, to warm counter, to cold fridge is what causes wilting. It will still be somewhat wet.

5. To store, I line a casserole dish (a cookie sheet would work too) with a paper towel (we try to limit these, but it works so much better than a cloth towel). Add all the lettuce and cover with another paper towel.

This will keep fresh and crisp in your fridge for at least 5 days. Makes it a lot easier for a weeknight salad or throwing some lettuce on your burgs!

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I plan to share many more recipes and tips like this one throughout the next few months. I’d love to hear requests to cover a specific topic or question!