How much lettuce to plant per person
Utah State University Extension recommends 5 to 10 feet of row per person. The calculator takes the middle, 7.5 ft per person, and turns it into plants at 8 inches apart, the middle of the 6 to 10 inch in-row spacing from Virginia Cooperative Extension and Colorado State University Extension. That is about 11 plants per person, rounded up to whole plants for the household.
Plants = people × 7.5 ft × 12 ÷ 8 in, rounded up
Lettuce for 1 to 6 people
| People | Plants | Row length | Raised bed space | Expected harvest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 | 8 ft | 3 sq ft | 2 to 3 lb |
| 2 | 23 | 15 ft | 6 sq ft | 3 to 6 lb |
| 3 | 34 | 23 ft | 9 sq ft | 5 to 9 lb |
| 4 | 45 | 30 ft | 11 sq ft | 6 to 12 lb |
| 5 | 57 | 38 ft | 14 sq ft | 8 to 15 lb |
| 6 | 68 | 45 ft | 17 sq ft | 9 to 18 lb |
Bed space uses the square foot method's 4 lettuce plants per square (UC Master Gardeners), so a family of four fits its 45 plants into about 11 squares, roughly a third of a 4 × 8 ft bed. The harvest uses Virginia Tech's 2 to 4 lb per 10 ft of row.
Lettuce is eaten fresh, and Utah State gives no separate figure for preserving, so the Fresh and Fresh + preserving columns of the table above show the same numbers.
Plant it in several sowings, not at once
Forty-five plants sown on one day come ready together. Johnny's Selected Seeds sows lettuce again every 2 to 3 weeks instead, so split the household amount across the season. For a family of four, three sowings of 15 plants, two to three weeks apart, keep the same total row but spread the harvest. The succession planting planner sets the dates.
Utah State also notes that lettuce grows best below 75°F and turns bitter in heat or when short of water, so most of those sowings belong in spring and again in fall. The planting dates for your ZIP code are on the lettuce planting dates page.
Head lettuce or leaf lettuce?
The per-person figure is a row length, so it works for both, but the plant count changes:
- Leaf lettuce at 8 inches gives the counts above. Utah State picks the outer leaves any time before the seed stalk forms, and the young leaves keep growing.
- Head lettuce is spaced 8 to 12 inches (Utah State). At 10 inches, 7.5 ft of row holds 9 heads per person rather than 11, and each head is picked once.
Next questions
- How many fit my bed? The lettuce spacing calculator counts plants for a 4 × 4, 4 × 8 or any other bed.
- What about the rest of the garden? The garden size calculator adds lettuce to tomatoes, beans, carrots and the other staples for your household.