Tag Archives: mottistone

Hot summers and growing lettuce in your SFG.

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Growing lettuce in the hot parts of the country can be a challenge. There are some like me who want that delicious, freshly harvested lettuce when the cucumbers and cherry tomatoes start  to arrive. 

We’ve had a really hot summer. A solid week of 100 plus temperatures, and maybe 2 weeks of 95-100 degree days. More of them are coming too. You can grow continue to grow lettuce if you know a few tricks. First and foremost is the soil. There is no soil as great as what we have in the SFG method. I’ve got an ebook that discusses the points needed to successfully grow lettuce right through the heat of summer. 

This is a summercrisp called Mottistone. I bought it from Johnnys years ago and now I see it’s no longer available on their site. I don’t know why this happens? You find a great variety of something only to return at a later date to discover it’s no longer there. This is a great tasting summer lettuce. Some will think the speckles are disease issues but that’s not the case. You can still find Mottistone seed. I found it on Amazon, which I personally wouldn’t do. Too many complaints from people thinking they bought a variety of something only to learn that it wasn’t at all what they were expecting. But you can find it here: https://viridishortus.co.uk/Lettuce-Mottistone-TZ-0281-615-05g. 

As summer is beginning to leave us, it’s probably a little late for summercrisps. Order for next year. Keep your seeds in the refrigerator and give it a try next summer. 

Time to start plantings for fall lettuce

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cherokee lettuceYes? Unless you are in the warmer climates of Arizona, Nevada, or So. Cal, this is the perfect time to prepare for fall lettuce.  And you’ll be so glad you did.  Temperatures are coming down in our state to the low 90’s.  That’s still too warm to germinate lettuce seeds but this is one of the advantage of the square foot garden.  Because your gardens are limited in size, it becomes easier to do certain things, such as protection.

By having the ability to cover a small patch of garden real estate more possibilities open up to you.  A simple structure that can hold shade cloth can be put together to do just that.  This keeps the hot rays of the sun of your plant, and it helps keep the soil cooler-a very important things to keep in mind when growing lettuce in summertime.  There’s still a few more things you can do to increase your chances of successfully doing this, which is the topic of my next ebook that I’ve been talking about for a year.  Soon!

This particular variety is mottistone, a bavarian lettuce crop.  With night temperatures starting to come down to the mid to low 60’s, it really is a good time to begin your fall garden.  I would put it all in during the next couple of weeks.  You’ll be rewarded handsomely.  And then if you decide not to have a winter garden this year, you can pull it all up and put it away until spring.

I do think you would like the experience of growing fall lettuce, along with other tasty salad greens.  And if there are any seed packets left on the shelves in the store-there usually is-you can usually buy them for .50 each.[ois skin=”1″]