You can buy all the fancy lettuce in the world from some of the best stores(like Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Sprouts, etc.)around and you’ll never be able to find one that tastes like this. Even at these stores the produce-if it’s coming in from out of state(and most of it may be)-is at least a week old. You pull some of this lettuce, give it a good rinse, and serve and you’ll have folks asking “what is this?” Lettuce is so easy to grow unless it’s in hot weather. You can still do it, but it takes a little more work in terms of water and shading. You can also start them inside where it’s cooler and then put them out after 2 or 3 weeks which will save you from the direct seeding method. This is Skyphos lettuce from Johnny’s selected seeds. It’s one of our favorites. Growing this in your gardens will ruin it for you when you have to shop and pay those rip-off prices at the grocery stores. Learn how to do it yourself for pennies. Along the way you’ll learn to expect a much better quality of taste for produce and veggies.

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On the recommendation from the folks at Johnny’s Selected Seeds, I was convinced to try this variety of lettuce 2 or 3 years ago. They commented that this was one of their most popular and best tasting lettuces they sold, so I tried it. Our family loved it, and so did those customers I grew it for. In fact, it’s become my most requested lettuce of the growing season. It’s a variety called Skyphos. It’s not a warm-weather lettuce so it won’t do well in the middle of summer. But it’s easily grown in spring and fall. As is typical with the square foot gardening method, there will be four heads of lettuce per square. This was not planted with transplants or sprouted seeds. This was part of the original test to see if I could grow this in what has now been described as the coldest January in Salt Lake City in 50+ years. It was directly-seeded right into the soil. It’s grown a little slower than I would’ve liked, but that’s to be expected with hot cold it’s been. Six weeks away for this to be ready. JSS has a brand new variety of lettuce this year that’s supposed to be even better-something called Salanova. I’ve got my seeds ready to plant with that go for in a few days.[ois skin=”below post”]