when lettuce bolts it tastes very bitter. You could allow it to ripen seeds and plant those later or you could pull the plants and compost them. They aren't much for eating once they bolt.

Just prior to their bolting you will start noticing a milky sap when you break off leaves.

Agreed, save seed if it's a variety you like -- you will have enough for the neibourhood. Allow two or three plants to flower to give you some genetic variability. Regards, Peter.

Some of our lettuce bolted a couple of years ago and we left it alone. For the next two springs we got early, delicious lettuce - it had self-seeded. It was Black-seeded Simpson, I think - an open-pollinated variety. What kind do you have?

Since then we've been letting some of each variety self-seed.

The plants also make good compost material.

1. Save seed
2. Make soup
3. Feed rabbits, chickens etc
4. Compost

Turn in under or use it for mulch, and plant another crop in it's place

Ron
The Garden Guy
http://www.TheGardenGuy.org
"New Article & Journal Entries For March"

I find that when you save seed you also get lots of volunteers the year after where seed fell to the ground during ones saving efforts. The beauty is that the volunteers chose exactly the right time to germinate. Regards, Peter.

Hello - not sure if I can revive this old thread, but similar to the original poster I am a first time (indoor) gardener. I have a couple lettuce plants that have bolted but I'm not sure how to gather the seeds to replant. Can I just bend the plant back and hope the seeds drop back into the same pot? Thank you!

Lettuce seed takes a long time to develop and ripen. You will first get the elongated stems, then the little dandelion-like flowers and finally after a long wait the dandelion-like seed heads. Basically you just leave the plants alone to keep growing. But, in my experience at least, this can take months. Personally I wouldn't bother with only a couple of plants indoors.

Thank you for the information !!!

Hi Flora, do you water the bed while waiting for the lettuce to produce mature seeds?

hm825, i think you should keep watering. In Australia, I planted bought lettuce seedlings in warm early December, early summer, then it got really HOT! I had beaut tasty lettuce leaves as the plant developed, but in late January, it was SO HOT, all plants went to seed/flower. I gave them extreme water during this time. So I am going to keep watering the soil, and I will experiment with keeping the seed from the lettuce, but won't count on them.

Hi Cheryl, you are funny :) I don't know how people can count to 1000 seeds. May be by weight. I sow the seeds in seed trays now. I keep inside the shade. One month later I will transplant them on the ground.

lemme know how it goes ! and what temps you plant in! thanx

Ok! No problem. I want the temperature below 30 deg C. Occassionally the temperature still shoot up above 30 in Feb. This is my first exp to grow lettuces.