Lactuca sativa • Heirloom

Elevate your dinner party game with these elegant yet adorable tiny Bibb lettuces. The small size and excellent flavor will have you smiling through salads all season long.

JOY MAX SCALE ✦✦✦✦✦

✦ A tennis-ball-sized heirloom butterhead

✦ Restaurant quality salad maker & great on salads

✦ Super cute in the garden

✦ Open-pollinated

Basic Growing Information

Direct sow when temps are in the 60s or start indoors. Sow 6 seeds per foot, Cover very lightly and firm soil gently. Sprouts should appear within a week to 10 days. Grows well in containers. Full sun in fall, but in spring/summer, part-shade is best. You can harvest leaves or full heads. It stores well in the fridge. Once established, Tom Thumb lettuce care is relatively simple. Plants will benefit from frequent watering and rich soil. Frequent monitoring for damage from pests, such as slugs and snails, will be imperative due to this plant’s small size.

Tips for Growing Lettuce

• Lettuce seeds need light to germinate; broadcast seeds or sow 2” apart on the soil surface & lightly cover with a thin layer of growing soil or potting medium.

• Sow lettuce seeds every two weeks to extend harvests. 

• For best flavor, pick lettuce when it’s still young as lettuce allowed to grow too long gets bitter and tough.

• Harvest in the morning when the leaves contain the most moisture.The glucose content of lettuce harvested in the morning may be 2-1/2 times greater than lettuce harvested in the early afternoon.

• If you let lettuce dry out, it may not die, but the flavor will be compromised. The best tasting lettuce has never known true thirst. 

Companion Planting

Plant mint among your lettuce to keep away the slugs that feed on lettuce leaves, or plant chives and garlic to repel aphids. Beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, corn, peas, radishes, and marigolds also work as good companion plants. 

Seed Saving

If you allow a lettuce to bolt, once completely dry, shake the flower stems in a paper bag. Rub the seed heads between your hands to release more seeds. Put the seed through a fine mesh sieve that allows the seeds through but retains the chaff and plumes; this will give relatively clean seed.