4 Pack x 200 Celtuce Seeds (Lactuca sativa), Chinese Stem Lettuce / Wo Sun / Rau Tien Vua, a Cool-Season Vegetable Grown for its Thick Peelable Stem and Leaves, Non-GMO Seeds for Stir-Fries, Salads and Home Gardens

Celtuce Seeds grow Lactuca sativa in its stem-lettuce form, the unusual Asian vegetable known as celtuce, Chinese stem lettuce, wo sun, or, in Vietnamese, rau tien vua. This is a seed packet for planting, not fresh celtuce, seedlings, celery seed, or a ready-to-eat vegetable.

Product Details

Celtuce is a lettuce grown the other way round: while you can eat its young leaves, the prize is the thick, crisp, juicy stem that the plant builds as it grows. Peeled of its fibrous outer skin, that stem has a tender, pale-green core with a mild, fresh, faintly nutty flavour that is lovely sliced into stir-fries, eaten raw in salads, pickled, or roasted, which makes it a favourite with adventurous vegetable gardeners and cooks who enjoy Asian greens. The leaves can be used young like a loose-leaf lettuce.

Like other lettuces, it is a cool-season crop, and that is the main thing to get right. It grows best in the milder parts of the year and is fairly cold-hardy, so it is usually sown from early spring through to autumn, and in hot summers it does better with some shade and steady moisture, since heat and drought make lettuces bolt and turn bitter. Give it full sun in cool weather or part shade in warmth, rich, moist, well-drained soil, and generous spacing so the plants can build good stems.

The detail that catches people out is harvesting. The stem is best cut when it has thickened to roughly an inch or more across and lengthened, but before the plant starts to flower and split, as an over-mature stem turns tough and bitter. When you use it, peel away the tougher outer layer to reach the crisp inner core.

It is a poor fit for a few situations. It is not a warm-season crop that loves summer heat, not an instant harvest, and it is grown here from seed rather than sold as a plant. Gardeners after a hot-weather vegetable or a quick crop should choose something else.

Sowing follows the cool-season rule that governs all lettuces. Set the seed only about an eighth to a quarter of an inch deep, and keep the soil on the cool side, ideally between about 40 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, since warmth much above the mid-seventies actually suppresses germination; in the right conditions seedlings appear in anywhere from three days to a fortnight. Space the plants generously, roughly eight to twenty-four inches apart, so each has the room to build a good, thick stem.

From sowing, expect a longer wait than for a leaf lettuce, because you are growing the stem, not just the leaves. Most celtuce takes somewhere around sixty to ninety days to reach a harvestable stem, and the single most important factor over that time is unbroken, even moisture: a plant checked by drought and then watered tends to make a tough, fibrous, or bitter stem, whereas steady moisture in rich soil keeps the core crisp, mild, and juicy. A mulch helps hold that moisture and steady the soil.

Timing the harvest is the detail that catches people out. Cut the stem once it has thickened to around an inch or more across and lengthened, but before the plant begins to bolt and send up its flower stalk, since an over-mature, flowering stem quickly turns woody and bitter. Catch it at the right moment, though, and you have the crisp, succulent stem that is the whole point of the vegetable.

Preparing it is quick once you know the trick. The outer skin of the stem is tough and slightly bitter and is simply peeled away, sometimes with a stringy layer beneath, to reveal a translucent, jade-green core. That core is the prize: mild, faintly sweet and nutty, and remarkably crisp, with a texture people compare to celery, cucumber, or water chestnut, and it holds that crunch whether eaten raw, quickly stir-fried, blanched, pickled, roasted, or dropped into soups.

Heat is the enemy of quality, so plan the season around cool weather. Celtuce is happiest in the mild fifties to mid-seventies Fahrenheit and bolts and turns bitter in real heat, so it is best grown as a spring and autumn crop, sown in the cooler shoulders of the year, with a little afternoon shade and reliable watering to see it through any warm spells. In many gardens an autumn crop, maturing as the weather cools, gives the sweetest, crispest stems of all.

There is a nice bonus in growing it, too: it is really two vegetables in one. Long before the stem is ready, the young leaves can be picked a few at a time and used like a loose-leaf lettuce in salads and wraps, so a row gives you leaves early and the prized stem later. In Vietnamese kitchens the peeled, sliced stem, known there among names like rau tien vua, goes into clear soups and quick stir-fries, taking on other flavours while keeping its signature crunch.

All told it rewards the curious grower. Adventurous vegetable gardeners, lovers of Asian greens, and anyone who enjoys a crop with a story get a genuinely unusual, versatile vegetable that is hard to buy fresh and easy enough to raise from seed in cool weather. Grown steadily, cropped at the right moment, and peeled before use, celtuce turns a familiar plant, lettuce, into something crisp, mild, and quietly special.

A word on what celtuce actually is rounds out the picture. It is not a separate species but a form of the same garden lettuce grown for leaves, selected over centuries in China for a swollen, edible stem rather than a heart of foliage; the English name simply fuses celery and lettuce to hint at the result. Long a staple in Chinese cooking, it has spread through East and Southeast Asian kitchens and is slowly finding fans among adventurous growers elsewhere.

Once cut it keeps well for a cool-season crop. Trimmed of its leaves, the whole stem stores for a week or two in the fridge, and peeled, sliced pieces stay crisp for several days, so a harvest stretches comfortably across a run of meals. That keeping quality, together with its versatility in the pan and its refusal to go soggy, is a large part of why one unusual vegetable can earn a regular place in the kitchen.

Handle it as a cool-season, stem-for-eating vegetable project rather than a fixed harvest, since germination, stem size, and quality depend on the season, soil, moisture, and timely picking. Keep unused seed cool, dry, and sealed, and follow the packet directions for sowing depth, spacing, and timing.

Product Highlights

• Celtuce Seeds grow Lactuca sativa in its stem-lettuce form, the unusual Asian vegetable known as celtuce, Chinese stem lettuce, wo sun, or, in Vietnamese, rau tien vua, grown mainly for a thick, crisp stem rather than a leafy head of lettuce.
• It is a lettuce grown the other way round: you can eat the young leaves, but the prize is the thick, juicy stem, which, peeled of its fibrous outer skin, has a tender, pale-green, mild, faintly nutty core that gives the plant its whole appeal.
• That peeled stem is lovely sliced into stir-fries, eaten raw in salads, pickled, or roasted, so it suits adventurous vegetable gardeners and cooks who enjoy Asian greens, while the young leaves can be picked and used like a loose-leaf lettuce too.
• Like other lettuces it is a cool-season crop that grows best in mild weather and is fairly cold-hardy, sown from early spring through autumn; in hot summers give it some shade and steady moisture, since heat makes lettuces bolt and turn bitter quickly.
• The trick is timing the harvest: cut the stem once it has thickened to about an inch or more but before it flowers and splits, then peel the tough outer layer; it is not a hot-season or instant crop, so store any spare seed cool, dry, and sealed.

Search Terms

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