Lettuce can be harvested a few leaves at a time or all at once as a head. Lettuce is ready to harvest when it is big enough to form a head, although you can eat the leaves anytime from when they are small.

What you will need:

1. something to cut the lettuce stem with - a small paring knife, a pair of small clippers or even a clean pair of scissors is good. You want to be able to cut the stem without damaging the leaves, so don't use a large knife or bypass pruners, these may be too big. And be careful not to cut your fingers

2. Something to put the lettuce in for bringing to the cafeteria or kitchen, such as a colander or large bowl or tray. This needs to be clean for food, not a garden bucket. You need to get this container from your cafeteria manager. You may want to bring out more than one container for collection. 

Here are lettuce heads ready to harvest in June in the photo above

Steps for harvesting

Step 1 - Lift up the other leaves to find the stem at the middle of the head. Hold the leaves back so you don't damage them while cutting the stem with a sharp knife or small clippers

Step 2: Cut the stem clean through and lift out the head, put in your colander or bowl

Step 3: Leaves still attached to the stem can be harvested too

Collect clean leaves and put these in your colander as well, or bring 2 colanders as the under leaves may have dirt on them, but they're still good to eat

Step 4: Let the remaining tired leaves and stem stay in the ground for now. If you pull it out you may get dirt all over your nice clean hands that haven't been harvested yet

Snap pea seeds are before April break so that, just as school is ending for the year, many of those lovely snap peas are ready to eat! Please remember to share, take only one pod per student per day and follow these instructions. And do NOT just pull the pods off the plant or you can damage all the peas yet to come.

Follow these simple harvest steps:

Step 1: Choose the fattest pods

Choose the fattest pods for picking, as skinny pods are less sweet, smaller, and will flatten up in a day or two. It really is worth the wait, and sharing with other harvesters is a kind thing to do. Fat pods tend to be below the skinny pods on the plant, with flowers about to make pods nearest to the top, so look under the leaves and lower on the plant

Skinny pod, don't pick yet

Fat pod from the side

Fat pod from the front

Step 2: Use the two-handed harvest method for picking

It's important to keep the snap pea stems from bending and breaking as you pick so that there will be more left to pick later this week. You can see that some of the pods are still small and flat. These will grow into fat pods in a few days, but they won't get ripe if their main plant is broken.

Grasp the stem near the main plant firmly with one hand (right hand in the photos below) and the pea pod itself near it's stem with the other hand

Holding the main plant end still with one hand to protect the plant, you can pull the pod to disconnect it from the plant with the other hand

Thanks for taking good care of these plants and for sharing the harvest!