Tag Archives: lettuce

Winter is getting closer!

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Winter is getting closerI woke up three times this week to a light frost on the ground. Winter approaches. There’s still a fair amount of lettuce, leeks, chard, and poc-choi. This will be the last week of actual planting in the main garden area and I’ve only got 10 squares remaining. Those will be filled with spinach, radishes, mizuna, and tatsoi. And it’s just about time to use floating row cover, which gives me a few extra degrees of protection for what’s around the corner. From the picture, what do you think we had for dinner last night? Potatoes, leeks, and chives makes the simplest and best tasting potato/leek soup. Add a Caesar salad with homemade croutons and you’re set. Over the period of the next 6 weeks my blog will be undergoing a make-over. Lots of changes, lots of work but I’m hoping to make it an even better place to visit.

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A look at a variety of summercrisp lettuce

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mottistone august 2014This is one of the many varieties of summercrisp lettuce that I grew this summer. We’ve come through the hottest months of the year and now it’s time for us to start eating this delicious lettuce. It’s very difficult to successfully grow lettuce in our hot summers but with a few tricks anybody can do it. My ebook that’s all about this subject-growing lettuce in hot weather-didn’t make it out in time. I finished it but it was too late. I’ll be publishing it in the spring of ‘2015. In the meantime, as you look at this wonderful head of lettuce and think to yourself “I should have planted some of this”-start your fall and/or winter garden right now. Or you’ll be saying the same thing to yourself in another 6 weeks with some of the other things I’ll be growing. I’ll be having my last class of the year in a few weeks. We’ll be discussing low tunnels and other things that will help you have an eventful winter season.[ois skin=”below post”]

This is a summer lettuce!

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cherokee summer lettuce 081516This tastes so awesome! No bitterness at all-a bavarian lettuce variety that grew right through a couple of 100 degree days and most the rest of the days in the mid to high 90’s. There are some very unique advantages to the SFG system, and this shows why. If you can protect your crops and lower the temperatures by 10-15 degrees, you can do anything you want with lettuce. For most folks the hot weather is largely behind us. Maybe southern California with it’s hot month of September is a candidate for this. You really should give it a try. If you’re tired of lettuce failure in the summer months and the bitter taste of the lettuce that remains in late spring, try some of these great summer lettuces.

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Mottistone

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mottistone lettuce 72114This is Mottistone lettuce-categorized as a “summercrisp.” Summercrisp lettuces are more heat tolerant than other varieties. When attempting to grow lettuce in weather of 80+ degrees, it’s hard to germinate the seeds. If you have lettuce that’s already up, the hot weather usually makes them bolt and turns them bitter tot he taste. But by utilizing just a few easy techniques, you can grow the heat tolerant varieties right through summer. I grow 6 different kinds of summercrisps and each one tastes different from the others. Learn how to be a square foot gardener. By limiting the size of your gardens you have better control over what you can do and are better able to protect your crops from not only cold, but from heat as well. In several weeks I will be having classes at my home. These are designed to teach you how to build an inexpensive “low tunnel” so you can grow right through winter. If you want to learn how to assemble a high tunnel, we’ll be doing that as well. I’ll spend a minimal amount of time on the square foot garden method. If you’re a row gardener, no problem. It’s more work and not a big harvest, but that’s your option. Classes will fill up. The fee is $25 per person and I’ll be selling specialty fall/winter seeds from Johnny’s. You’ll save shipping charges if you buy them from me and nobody around here has these varieties. Stay tuned.

New lettuce variety

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queensland 62114I mentioned a little about this several posts back. This is a new lettuce that I’m growing that can’t be found in America. I have a friend who has traveled and gardened overseas and has found this great variety that can be grown in both cold and hot weather. It’s also a different spacing than what us SFGers would normally do. Lettuce is planted 4 per square. This variety is large enough so that it’s only planted 1 per square. It’s non-hearting meaning it doesn’t form that tender inner “heart” that typically is associated with leaf lettuce varieties. Think romaine-Caesar salad greens. You harvest the leaves from the bottom. It continues to grow and keeps going for 5-6 weeks. At that point it sends up a shoot, becomes bitter, and goes to seed. Then you save the fluffy gray seed heads for next year. I’ll be selling this at the end of summer if you’re interested. It’s another great tasting crop to have on hand. The greatest thing is its ability to grow in hot weather-something that is hard to do with all other kinds of lettuce.[ois skin=”below post”]