How to Pull Up Lettuce

Pulling up Lettuce

• 1

  Select the lettuce to be pulled. Lettuce may be harvested as baby greens when it is as small as two inches in height, or may be harvested at any point in between. Lettuce is best harvested earlier in the season rather than later, as the leaves tend to develop a bitter flavor as it ages.

• 2

  Grasp the leaves to be pulled. Baby greens are easily grasped with just a couple of fingers, while with a larger more mature plant you will need to use your entire hand. When grasping baby greens, grip them gently as they may be easily bruised. For mature lettuce, grasp the plant as close to the ground as possible.

• 3

  Loosen the soil from around the lettuce plant. Using your weeder, dig into the soil surrounding and beneath the lettuce plant, at 45 degree angles all around the plant. Loosen the soil, and break up roots. The lettuce should begin to give in to gentle pushing and pulling, and should be easier to extract.

• 4

  Lift the plant from the garden bed. Baby greens will likely release from the garden bed with little resistance, while mature plants will be more difficult to remove. If you are unable to remove the plant by hand, use the weeder tool to help loosen the soil further, and break the roots of the plant. The weeder will leverage the plant from the soil, and you can then remove it.

• 5

  Remove plant debris from the garden bed. Using your weeder or a trowel, dig up the immediate area in which the lettuce was located. Remove any large pieces of roots or other organic matter, and either discard it or compost it,