As a child, I would never choose a red lettuce leaf for my salad plate at any of the high-end hotels of Karachi. Somehow, I was scared of it being ‘different’ from the usual green lettuce leaves available throughout the city.

Back then, the red lettuce was quite rare and hardly available at local vegetable sellers. You could find them at the historic Empress Market in the Saddar area, at the old Sabzi Mandi and a few supermarkets in Clifton.

Fast forward one generation: my daughter and I daily consume red lettuce leaves in our whole-grain sandwiches or salad bowls filled with our fresh, daily home-grown harvest. The red lettuce leaves are now, comparatively, easily available in the commercial market, albeit still with limited acceptance. Even today, red lettuce is much more expensive than the routine green lettuce, as it still caters to a niche market.

Over the last three years, I have shifted from growing only a few pots of red lettuce leaves to doing so in bulk. This not only helps maintain a steady, ample flow for the family meals, but it also happens to be a cute little, yet expensive, home-grown gift for many of our guests who visit, especially with gardening queries. In this article and the next one, we will see how these highly nutritious red lettuce leaves can be easily grown at home without spending too much.

Spruce up your salad plate with the more exotic-looking and healthier red lettuce leaves

For the last few decades, I was growing the green lettuce — scientifically known as Lactuca sativa and belonging to the Asteraceae family — in abundance at home. The red ones made their way into my garden very recently, as they are even more nutritious.

The green lettuce was being grown in pots, fruit baskets, raised beds, in open ground and even around other potted plants in the same pot, as it has much smaller roots. Over the last three seasons, we gradually switched the green lettuce leaves with the red lettuce leaves in the aforementioned dedicated spaces.

The seeds of red lettuce leaves are white in colour, lightweight and somewhat resemble cumin seeds in shape and size. The best time to sow the seeds is during spring and the right temperature range should be between 16 to 25 degrees Celsius. The seeds also germinate well within that temperature range.

Since it is a lightweight seed, it should not be sown in depth, otherwise it has a tendency not to germinate at all. The germination rate improves with the seeds being sprinkled on the surface of the potting mix in a container and then being covered with a fine layer of compost. The potting mix should be thoroughly watered before sowing the seeds.

Another method to avoid the seeds dispersing due to watering is to opt for the bottom-up watering technique. In this technique, the container with a drainage hole is placed on a tray with water and the water is sucked up by the soil from the bottom hole of the pot or cup, all the way up to the place where the seeds are sown.

This way the seeds remain at their original position.

It is of utmost significance that the soil is devoid of any pebbles and stones. The soil and container should be well-drained. The container should then be covered with plastic and put aside in an area away from direct sunlight exposure, to ensure minimal water evaporation.

In favourable conditions, the better quality seeds of red lettuce are likely to germinate between one week and 10 days of sowing in the aforementioned temperature range.

If there is an advantage of continued and sustained temperature prevailing in the region, more seeds can be sown after every two weeks. This will ensure continued availability of harvest at regular intervals.

After four to six leaves grow on the seedling, it can be shifted to a bigger, permanent position, for better growth. Initially, the grower may get confused, as there is a strong likelihood the seedlings will have more of the green colour than red, and they resemble the green lettuce seedling. However, with the passage of time, the plant and leaves start to acquire the red colour and fully transform.

In our article next week, we will write about the growth and harvest of red lettuce, the required fertilisers, and the probable pest attacks and their remedies and, of course, the health benefits of consuming red lettuce leaves.

Please send your queries and emails to doctree101@hotmail.com. The writer is a physician and a host for the YouTube channel ‘DocTree Gardening’ promoting organic kitchen gardening

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 17th, 2024