Lettuce comes in a range of varieties – with flavors from buttery and mild to nutty and even slightly bitter; textures from delicate to crunchy; and colors from pale to dark green and burgundy.
With all these choices, even the most ardent veggie-phobes or demanding foodies will find lettuce to love. Most of the leafy greens we put in our salad bowls are varieties of Lactuca Sativa.
Lettuce can also be grown hydroponically - the growing of plants in nutrient solutions with or without an inert medium (such as soil) to provide mechanical support. Read our post on how to grow a soilless indoor farm for details.
Let’s take a tour of some of the best varieties of lettuce. We’ve included some popular choices for you to choose from, as well as some lesser-known cultivars.
Related page: "Grow Your Own Food with Hydroponics
Lalique | Ice Crystal
With a sweet crunchy bite, this green lettuce has a high leaf count of robust leaves, with a light blister and a frilled margin. Perform very well in taste and processability for commercial use.
Where to buy:
Thurinus | Red Romaine
Thurinus is a dark Red Cos lettuce. A perfect match to green lettuces, this red Cos is a full body crunch in every bite. Relatively heavier than leaf and fan-type
lettuces, Thurinus is red on the tips and outside and goes into green and yellow at its core.
Where to Buy
Olmetie | Green Batavia
Also known as summer crisp, this Batavia type is easy to grow, relatively tolerant of hot weather, and harvestable from baby leaf to full size. Very crisp like romaine, but sweet and juicy, without bitterness.
Where to Buy
Opalix | Red Oak Leaf
Opalix has a very high percentage of usable leaves making it an excellent choice for fresh market sale and even better on the plate. Opalix seeds by Enza Zaden are perfect to be grown in hydroponics and excellently suitable for soil-grown farms.
Where to Buy
Invicta | Green Batavia
The Invicta Lettuce seeds are green-colored lettuce, perfect for warm climates, open variety, works for indoor and outdoor production, and perfect for hydroponics.
The Invicta Lettuce from Rijk Zwaan is extremely tolerant to heat and slow to bolt. As with any other Rijk Zwaan seeds these seeds have very high purity and almost perfect rate in germination making it appropriate for direct sowing.
Where to Buy
Rouxai | Red Oak Leaf Lettuce
Rouxai is premium-class red oakleaf lettuce. Very red outdoor oakleaf. Unique because of its very red color at the top of the leaves but also the intense red color on the underside of the leaves. Suitable for hydroponics and outdoor production.
Where to Buy
Xanadu | Baby Romaine
Xanadu is mini-size Romaine that has excellent taste and quality. This lettuce variety is sought after by commercial farmers due to its popularity as a commercial produce pack in groceries and for its excellent use in restaurants.
Where to Buy
Mondai | Red Oak Leaf
A popular Heirloom variety, grown for its striking rich red colour and its beautiful notched leaves, which are shaped like an oak leaf. The leaf form produces a dense bunch of leaves, which have a tender sweet flavour with good resistance to bolting and tip burn.
Where to Buy
Volare | Crisp Butterhead
The Volare has a very high percentage of usable leaves making it an excellent choice for fresh market sale and even better on the plate. Perfect to be grown in hydroponics and excellently suitable for soil-grown gardens.
Where to Buy
Azirka | Lollo Rossa
Azirka has jagged-edged leaves that form a loose-leaf head of lettuce. The leaves are crisp, thick, and shiny green, becoming tinged darkly with red at the ends. The leaves are crisp with a slight, pleasantly bitter taste to them..
Where to Buy
Skilton | Easy Leaf
Skilton is an easy-to-cultivate, fast-growing lettuce variety. It grows with spike-liked leaves, grows upright, leaves are pliable, and the variety is very strong against tip burn. It has high uniformity, a solid well-cut sheet, and a high yield. Skilton has very good suitability for high-density direct sowing with subsequent machine harvesting of the leaves.
Skilton Eazyleaf is a premiere variety of lettuce from Enza Zaden. Skilton has an excellent head shape, grows with high uniformity, and yields above average in weight and in size. The Skilton variety grows all year round and is perfect to be raised in an open field, or greenhouse, including hydroponics.
Where to Buy
Dabi | Classic Lollo Bionda
Dabi is a dense leafed Lollo Bionda with an upright base, good filling ability, fine curl, and mid-green color. Dabi is genetically designed and acclimatized to Asian weather.
Where to Buy
Gilmore | Red Butterhead
Imagine a lettuce that steals the show not just with its taste, but its stunning looks.
Meet Gilmore by Rijk Zwaan, a red butterhead variety that bursts with vibrant contrast.
Picture this: ruby-red outer leaves intensify towards the edges, framing a soft, light green heart as fresh as springtime. This isn't just beautiful, it's bursting with flavor and versatility.
Where to Buy
How to Harvest Lettuce
Lettuce is one of the easiest and most straightforward vegetables to harvest, and most varieties can begin to be harvested between 30 and 70 days after planting, depending on the types of lettuce you’re growing. However, once harvested, lettuce is quick to wilt—so rather than harvesting all of your lettuce at once, simply visit your garden when you want fresh lettuce and harvest a little bit then.
1. Harvest the lettuce plants in the morning. Lettuce will be at its freshest in the morning before it has been out in the sun all day. Ignore this tip if you are growing hydroponically. If you want to harvest some of your lettuce, it’s best to choose and harvest your leaves before the temperature gets too warm and the lettuce begins to wilt.
2. Remove the outer leaves. The outer leaves of the lettuce plant are the most mature, so these are the ones you’ll want to harvest first. Look at the outer lettuce leaves and find any that are large, have a strong color, and feel crisp, and remove them by tearing gently or cutting with a pair of shears.
3. Allow the inner leaves to continue growing. Even though you’ve removed leaves from the lettuce plant, the inner leaves will continue to grow. Continue to care for the plant for later harvesting.
At the end of the season, if you’re harvesting lettuce plants all at once, simply cut the whole plant about a half-inch above the soil level. Harvested lettuce should be stored in the refrigerator in a loose, plastic bag and can keep for up to three weeks, depending on the variety.
