Red butterhead lettuce: sowing and growing

Want to sow and grow your own red butterhead lettuce? This unusual leaf lettuce grows quickly and produces lots of soft, tender leaves. The outer leaves are dark red, while the leaves inside are green.

Pick the outer leaves and leave the centre intact. The plant will keep growing, giving you fresh leaves for weeks.

Head of Makkelijke Moestuin red butterhead lettuce, ready to harvest — *A head of red butterhead lettuce, ready to harvest*

What is red butterhead lettuce?

Red butterhead lettuce is a tender Salanova leaf lettuce with round, soft leaves. The outer leaves are dark red and become greener towards the heart.

Instead of harvesting the whole head at once, you pick the outer leaves. The plant then continues to grow from the centre.

Pick a few leaves from the red butterhead lettuce and let the head continue growing — *Pick a few leaves from the red butterhead lettuce and let the head continue to grow*

Vitamins and minerals in leaf lettuce

Leaf lettuce does not contain huge amounts of vitamins and minerals, but what it does contain is good for your body. Every little helps, right?

It contains a fair amount of vitamin A, as well as some folate, vitamin C, iron and potassium. And plenty of fibre, which is good for your gut 🙂

Red Salanova lettuce from the Makkelijke Moestuin: ready to pick — *Different Salanova lettuces, freshly harvested*

More about our red butterhead lettuce

An unusual, tasty lettuce that you can harvest over a long period. The heads grow quickly, are slow to bolt and produce an enormous amount of tender leaves. They are dark red on the outside, green on the inside and all roughly the same size.

Variety: Salanova red butterhead lettuce
Family: leaf
Plants per square: 1
Height: 15 to 25 cm (front or middle row)
Start indoors: March to August
Sowing depth: 0.5 to 1 cm
Germination: 2 to 8 days at 5 to 18°C
Time to harvest: from 6–7 weeks
Sunlight: grows in both sun and shade

This variety produces round, tender leaves that stay fairly small, but it more than makes up for that with the sheer quantity. The plants also bolt much later than other varieties, so you can keep harvesting for a long time.

Another bonus: slugs tend to leave red lettuce alone more than green lettuce, and it looks lovely on your plate.

You receive 12 clay pellets*, each containing one seed, so sow them carefully.

What are clay pellets?

Sometimes our seeds come with a protective clay coating—a clay pellet. It makes sowing easier, and they germinate better than bare seeds.

What do you need to grow red butterhead lettuce?

Besides the seeds, you need the following to start them:

MM air pots (small size)
MM seed-starting mix or Makkelijke Voorzaaigrond (coco coir seed-starting mix)
Cling film and elastic bands (only with the traditional MM seed-starting mix, not with the coco coir mix)
One label per pot

Once the seedling is large enough to plant outside, you need:

one 30 × 30 cm square
Makkelijke Moestuingrond or Makkelijke Moestuin mix
a spot with at least 6–8 hours of sunlight a day

Red butterhead lettuce

This tasty Salanova Butter lettuce grows quickly, shoots very late, and the heads get an enormous amount of tender red-green leaves that are all the same size.

~~€3.89~~ €1.94

How do you sow and grow red butterhead lettuce?

This Salanova leaf lettuce is included in the free Makkelijke Moestuin app, which explains step by step how to sow, grow and harvest it.

Every vegetable passes through several stages, which we call levels. The app tells you exactly what to do at each level and regularly asks you to check whether your plants are ready for the next one.

So you do not need to know in advance how to grow red butterhead lettuce successfully. But if you would like a preview, you can read all about it below.

Pre-sowing

Level 1: Start red butterhead lettuce indoors

Red butterhead lettuce takes about six to seven weeks to grow from seed into a plant you can harvest for the first time. During the first few weeks, the tiny plant is vulnerable to bad weather and pests such as slugs.

That is why you start it indoors, move it outside later and plant it in its own square about four weeks after sowing.

Starting works best in small air pots filled with Makkelijke Voorzaaigrond (coco coir seed-starting mix). They take up little space and provide just enough nutrition for the first stage of growth.

Salanova red butterhead lettuce seedling — *Red butterhead lettuce seedling*

Care on the windowsill

Levels 2 and 3: Move it outside

As soon as the seedling emerges, remove the film. From then on, place the pot in full light, preferably somewhere no warmer than about 16°C. A few days later, the seedling will be ready to move outside.

In March and April, keep the pot somewhere protected from frost and bad weather. From May onwards, even that is no longer necessary, as long as slugs cannot reach it.

You can sink the pot into an empty square or place it in an MM-mini. It will easily hold nine pots:

One square can hold 9 pots with lettuce seedlings started indoors — *One square holds nine pots with lettuce seedlings*

Care in the garden

Level 4: Plant it in its own square

About four weeks after sowing, your plant will be large enough to plant in its own square.

Young butterhead lettuce plant, ready to move to its own square — *A home-grown butterhead lettuce plant, ready for its own square*

Level 5: Care in the garden and the first harvest

Red butterhead lettuce needs very little care: simply keep the mix moist.

About two weeks later, you can start harvesting the first leaves.

Salanova butterhead lettuce plant large enough for its first leaf harvest — *A butterhead lettuce plant large enough for its first leaf harvest*

With this leaf lettuce, you harvest the leaves rather than the whole plant at once. Pick some of the outer leaves and leave the centre intact.

Harvesting

Level 6: Keep harvesting

Eventually, the head becomes quite large and fills the entire square.

If you keep harvesting the outer leaves instead of the whole plant, it continues to grow from the centre and you can keep picking leaves for several weeks.

*One head of red butterhead lettuce eventually fills the entire square*

The next levels

During the final levels, keep harvesting the leaves until you no longer enjoy them as much raw in salads.

This variety is slow to bolt. Even so, younger plants have much tastier and more tender leaves, so it is better to harvest the whole plant well before then.

Finally, prepare the square or your MM-mini for the next vegetable.

Older red butterhead lettuce about to flower, over three months old — *Older red butterhead lettuce, about to bolt after more than three months*

How do you use red butterhead lettuce?

As the name suggests, you use the leaves as lettuce. They are also delicious in smoothies.

Start harvesting when the leaves are about 8 cm long. At that stage they are wonderfully tender and perfect for salads. They remain tasty as they grow larger too.

Only when the plants are more than about three months old do the leaves become slightly tougher and more bitter. Use them in a mash, stir-fry or a tasty soup 😀

Salad made with four Salanova leaf lettuces, with red butterhead lettuce on the left — *A salad made with four Salanova lettuces, with red butterhead lettuce on the left*

So, what is stopping you from sowing and growing red butterhead lettuce?

It is a tasty, easy vegetable to grow, you can harvest it for a long time and the leaves look fantastic. Add a fresh young plant to your garden regularly and you can enjoy delicious leaf lettuce from mid-April through October.

And with our materials and app, it is almost impossible to go wrong 😀

Good luck!

View red butterhead lettuce in the shop