When to sow lamb's lettuce?
- Botanical name
- Valerianella locusta
- Family
- Caprifoliaceae
Lamb's lettuce is sown outdoors from August to October, 1 cm deep. It germinates in 20 to 25 days. It is harvested from October to April.
Lamb's lettuce is an annual plant. The edible parts are the leaves.
Corn salad sown for summer runs up a flower stem. In cool weather it goes on growing.
Corn salad is not sown where lettuce has grown. The two plants are not related and they share diseases.
Corn salad is picked by cutting the whole rosette at once. The flower stem shows late, so one bed is cut over a long period.
Lamb's lettuce through the year
- transplanting
- outdoor sowing
- harvest
In short
Growing conditions
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
- Signs
- A white, floury coating spreads over the leaves, first on the lower and older ones. The leaf under it yellows and dries up. The fruit stays small, because the plant loses leaf surface.
- Prevention
- Plant resistant varieties, leave an airy spacing and sun, and clear the debris at the end of the season. Unlike most fungi it is not helped by wet foliage, since it spreads in heat and high air humidity, in a dry summer too.
- What to do
- Oil products meant for powdery mildew on the squash family work on contact. They do not cure a leaf that is already affected, but they stop the spread to healthy ones. On herbs cut the affected shoots back instead, since the new growth comes clean. On ornamental perennials what is left is spacing and moisture.
- Signs
- Holes appear in the middle of the leaf rather than along the edge, young plants are eaten down to the ground, and there are slimy trails in the morning. On low-growing fruit there are gnawed pits.
- Prevention
- Remove the hiding places beside the bed: boards, stones, dense weeds. Water in the morning and not in the evening, so that the night is dry. Spread a band of coarse sand or gravel around the bed. Cover young plants with fleece. Pick them off at night, which is still the most effective measure.
- What to do
- Baits with iron phosphate are held to carry less risk for pets and children. Put them out in bands beside the bed, not scattered over the whole surface.
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Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Caprifoliaceae).
Sources about the plant: GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, Johnny's Selected Seeds, KGZS, Royal Horticultural Society, Semenarna Ljubljana, Smernice za strokovno utemeljeno gnojenje (Mihelič et al., MKGP 2011), Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 30 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: Clemson Cooperative Extension, UF/IFAS Extension, University of Maryland Extension, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, Utah State University Extension.