Seed Saving: How to Harvest Lettuce Seeds

Saving lettuce seeds is an easy way to save a little money in your garden and boost your self sufficiency. Learn how to harvest lettuce seeds in part 7 of our series on seed saving!

Lettuce is a fun crop to grow, and a handy crop to have near your kitchen, since store bought lettuce does not store very long. If you don’t have garden space, lettuce can even be grown in a pot on your porch or balcony.

There are so many exciting varieties of lettuce available today. I try new ones every year! My favorites include Crisp Mint Romaine, Winter Density Bibb, Forellenschlauss Romaine and Lollo Rossa Cutting Lettuce.

How to Harvest Lettuce Seeds

Lettuce doesn’t readily cross with other plants. This makes learning how to harvest lettuce seeds far easier than saving seeds from other vegetables like squash.

It has perfect flowers that are self pollinating, meaning lettuce is not dependent on wind or insects for pollination.

Although it is possible for different types of lettuce to cross with each other, and with wild lettuce, crosses are very rare. Different lettuce varieties can usually be grown side by side without crossing. If you want to be sure to avoid accidental cross pollination, keep at least ten feet between different lettuce varieties in your garden, and don’t allow wild lettuce to flower nearby.

Early Bolters

This is probably the most important thing to know when learning how to harvest lettuce seeds. Seed should not be saved from lettuce that bolts (sends up a tall stalk and goes to seed) early. Discard those first plants that bolt and wait for the later plants that make a nice head of lettuce first.

Looseleaf and romaines lettuces can be harvested at least once or twice before letting them go to seed, so there is no need to sacrifice your crop. You can eat your lettuce and have your seeds too!

Looseleaf varieties and most romaines will go to seed without any help. Types of lettuce that have a tighter head, such as butterhead and crisphead varieties, might need those top leaves to be removed or slit across the top with a sharp knife to allow the stalk to push its way through.

Lettuce stalks have tiny yellow flowers that only open for a few hours. The flowers will die back as the seeds start to form. When the seeds are ready, the flowers will develop little white fuzzy “feathers”, similar to a dandelion.

Harvesting Lettuce Seeds

When the flowers have started to show some of that white fluff, as you can seed on the top flowers in the picture above, its time to start harvesting lettuce seeds!

Harvesting lettuce seeds is easy once you get the hang of it. Take a paper grocery sack and gently bend the lettuce stalk over so the flower head is inside the sack. Shake the flower head back and forth, hitting it against the sides of the bag. You can also rub the seed head with your fingers to loosen the seeds.

Take the paper bag back out there and repeat the process every 1-2 days until there are no more seeds, or you’ve gathered all you need. If you are saving seed from more than one variety, be sure to write the name on each bag.

The seeds you’ve gathered will have a lot of foreign objects and white fluff mixed in. Gently shaking the bag will help the seeds fall to the bottom, so the chaff can be picked off the top with your fingers. You can also shake the seeds through different sized screens or mesh strainers to further clean them. How clean you get the seeds is up to your personal preference!

Let the seeds dry out for a few days before storing in paper envelopes for next year!

Want to learn more about seed saving?

You can find our original seed saving article, and read more about saving seed from specific plants here!

AND…we now have an ONLINE COURSE FOR BEGINNING SEED SAVERS! It’s a fast and affordable way to learn everything you need to know about saving seeds from 20+ common garden vegetables.

In the course, you’ll learn not only how to harvest lettuce seeds, but which plants can cross, how to avoid unwanted cross pollination, how many plants to grow to avoid inbreeding depression, and more!

You can read about our online course, Simple Seed Saving here!