I 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”]

Take a look around at your local CSA’s today. As a result of finishing up the spring season, there’s still lettuce in those baskets. But if you live in a warm climate chances are there won’t be any lettuce offered in the hot months. We’re not too far away from that right now. There is the possibility that they buy their lettuce from other sources to keep their supply constant. But what about July/August? It’s been 90+ here already this spring. At temperatures of 80-85+ it becomes very difficult if not impossible to have your lettuce seeds sprout outside. There are a few tricks to learn if you want to enjoy lettuce all summer long. The two main techniques are to water at least twice as much as you normally would and to provide some sort of shade cover during the hottest part of the day. In this way I’ve been able to sprout lettuce in 100 degree weather-and it comes up in 2 days! I’m in the process of finishing my 2nd ebook about this very topic. It’s got 3 additional techniques to use for a successful summer lettuce season. Of all the things we grow in our garden, lettuce is by far our family favorite and it’s the one thing we eat the most of. And when you’ve just harvested fresh lettuce from your gardens for your dinner salad you’ll hate buying it at the store.[ois skin=”below post”]

I have a new ebook coming out soon about lettuce and how to grow it in warm weather. I talk about using several techniques to be successful in doing so. One of those techniques is to use a cut-and-come again or loose leaf lettuce variety. Granted this isn’t the hot part of the season but your lettuce should behave just like this picture. Tomorrow I will be cutting this for the 3rd time. I started it in the winter and it’s still going. So far it’s grown back to this size in 3 weeks. I have many squares of this type of lettuce growing right now in my garden but this will become increasingly important in the next 8 weeks. Just cut it right above the crown of the plant and you’ll harvest it two more times after the initial cut. This is Red Sails-a readily available variety. Keep an eye out for my ebook-it will hopefully get here before the hot weather. It will be available on Amazon, my blog, and possibly the Square Foot Gardening Foundation as well.

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