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Lotsa Lettuce

March 16th, 2015

I’m a sucker for lettuce seeds. When I read through the descriptions and see the beautiful images in the seed catalogs I go a little overboard. I do like a lot of variety in my salad bowl and find that five or six types of lettuce makes for a great salad.
Lettuce seedlings
I have found that lettuce seeds are often best to be purchased fresh each year. I used to keep them for a few years, but germination is so much faster and so many more seeds germinate when the seeds are really fresh. Now all of my leftover seed from the year gets thrown into planters in the fall that get overwintered in the basement. Then I have a nice crop of mesclun for salads in the early winter months.
lettuce 1
On Saturday I started a flat of lettuces & endive, there are 15 varieties in all that were started this go around. There are also three other varieties in planters in the basement…..and I have another 15 that are later season varieties that will replace these when the weather warms up a bit. Then I have another 10-15 varieties that will be grown in the fall/winter. Butterheads are my favorite types of lettuce, with romaine coming in a close second. Leaf lettuce are probably my least favorite. I like a lot of crunch and texture in my lettuce. Endive and other bitter greens are also always in my salad bowl, nothing rounds out sweet greens like a bit a bitterness!

What’s your favorite kind of lettuce to grow?

6 Comments to “Lotsa Lettuce”
  1. Nebraska Dave on March 16, 2015 at 9:16 am

    Susy, I really don’t have a favorite kind of lettuce. It’s all good. I’m really trying to hold off another two weeks before starting my warm weather plants but gracious, 80 degrees? What in the world is going on with the weather in Nebraska. Our average high for March days should be in the 50s. Still not a drop of moisture which is a very bad thing. Fortunately deep mulching has kept the moisture in the ground in my gardens. Soil temperature is almost high enough to plant potatoes. They are still stored away in the food storage room waiting to be planted. It’s hard to believe that just a little more than two weeks ago, it was zero degrees with wind chills way below zero.

    Have a great lettuce starting day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

  2. sarah on March 16, 2015 at 10:48 am

    We grow and eat a ton of salad but lettuce is just a part of it. I grow butterhead lettuce but the season when it thrives is pretty short. Arugula seems to grow year round here, we have kale in the winter, mustard off and on, spinach in the spring and sometimes fall, chard & beet greens in late spring and early summer. I pretty much just walk around and pick a few handfuls of whatever’s growing until my big bowl is full and wash it all together.

    Reply to sarah's comment

  3. Sylvia on March 16, 2015 at 11:53 am

    I was introduced to butterheads last year and it is by far my all time favorite. I plan on growing much more this year along with mesclun. I should also try to grow romaine

    Reply to Sylvia's comment

  4. Charlie@Seattle Trekker on March 16, 2015 at 12:42 pm

    It’s time to start planting the garden so you bits of information are really appreciated…I look forward to you upcoming photos showing your progress.

    Reply to Charlie@Seattle Trekker's comment

  5. Caroline on March 16, 2015 at 4:00 pm

    Least year I tried out the Seed Savers Lettuce Mix from Seed Savers Exchange. I absolutely love the varities in this mix. This year I’ll have to figure out specifically which ones I like best. The pack says it contains: Australian Yellowleaf, Forellenschluss, Palo, Red Velvet and “at least four more of our favorite varieties.”

    My husband on the other hand ONLY likes Iceberg lettuce. Talk about boring. So I have started some of that in a milk jug in the backyard, along with the good stuff.

    I’m getting anxious to start putting plants actually into the ground!

    Reply to Caroline's comment

  6. Maybelline on March 16, 2015 at 10:19 pm

    I like Merlot. It’s frilly and deep, dark red. It really looks great next to a chartreuse variety. Very striking. It has a sharp taste -kinda. So, it is great to add to a salad mix.

    Sadly, it’s too hot here now for lettuce; but I’ve enjoyed it all winter long.

    Enjoy your salad days.

    Reply to Maybelline's comment

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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