Description

Little Leprechuan is a relatively modern romaine lettuce variety, popular for its excellent flavor and beauty. Little Leprechuan’s outer leaves are red-tinged and green at the base, while the inner leaves and the crisp heart are light green and tender in texture and flavor.

Little Leprechaun is our favorite lettuce variety and we’ve been growing it every year since we first grew it in 2018!

Little Leprechuan’s multi-toned leaves make a beautiful salad and taste delicious too. We tend to harvest each plant’s outer leaves and let the plants keep producing leaves through the their lifespans. The outer, larger, exposed leaves have dark red pigments, thus having more anthocyanins, and I believe they are likely to have more antioxidants than the inner, lighter, protected leaves.

However, if you prefer the delicious romaine hearts (who doesn’t?), Little Leprechaun makes a beautiful head of lettuce and you can wait to harvest it all at once from the base with a sharp knife.

We primarily use lettuce in salads and sandwiches, but romaine lettuce can also be cooked like any green leafy vegetable. Throw it in a stir fry, noodles or dish of your choice at the end of cooking to wilt the lettuce while the leaf ribs maintain some crunch. Its delectable! Or cook it longer for maximum mineral availability, nourishment and digestability.

Romaine lettuce is more drought hardy than most other types of lettuce and Little Leprechuan is no exception. We’re encouraging more drought hardiness by putting our lettuce plants through the trials and saving seeds from the hardiest plants. Some plants even go without irrigation in our arid summer and are sure to save their seeds. We’re hoping that every year our lettuce population will get a little more drought tolerant.

Little Leprechuan Lettuce tends to make more red leaves in sunny, drier conditions, and taller, greener, more tender leaves in part-shade conditions.

When allowed to go to seed, lettuce volunteers fairly readily next season. We are taking that cue from the lettuce and scattering, or broadcasting seed over exposed soil, allowing lettuce to live among the other weeds in our soil seed bank. So we are wild tending lettuce in our gardens and perhaps our selections will be more apt to volunteer in yours.

We’re delighted to share our Little Leprechuan seeds with you!

Details

Lifecycle: Annual
Lifespan: 1 season
Hardiness zones: 5-9 (USDA)
Habitats: Not known in the wild
Plant size: 1 ft wide x 3 ft tall
Light: Full sun to part shade
Soil: All soil types
Water: Moist soil preferred

Seed Starting

Direct sow lettuce in a prepared bed about 1/4″ deep in late winter or as soon as the soil is workable. As a cold hardy greens, lettuce can also be sowed in the late summer or early fall for a fall crop. Thin to 8 to 18 inches, depending on how you will be harvesting the plants.

Cultivation

Lettuce needs some weeding early on and then it is easy going. If you live in a hot climate, lettuce will appreciate regular moisture.

Harvest

Once the lettuce plant starts to get 6+” tall, you can start harvesting the outer leaves sparingly. The more robust the plant gets, the more often you can harvest the outer leaves. Or if you want the full head, wait until it is full size and then harvest the head at the base.

I like to sow my lettuce fairly closely and once they are shoulder to shoulder, I harvest leaves as I thin the plants. Then they have more room to fill out and the leaves will soon fill the space, helping to block weeds from coming up.

Once the summer temperatures heat up and the lettuce starts growing tall to make a seed stalk, the leaves will get more bitter and at that point you can make your final harvests before all energy is directed into flowers and seeds.

Seed Saving

As an annual, we can save seeds from lettuce in the same season it was planted. When the lettuce plant bolts, look for it to make yellow flowers, followed by seeds with little puffs (pappus). When you see a bunch of fluffs exposed on the seed head, gently tap the seedhead over or on the side of a bowl or paper bag to collect the seeds rubb off and gently blow (winnow) away the fluff and screen the seeds to clean them further if desired.

Note: Wear gloves when handling the seed stalk if your skin is sensitive to latex sap.