We are eating lettuce from my garden every night – sometimes in salads and sometimes just plain old leaf lettuce with mayonnaise and salt on the side.
This year I planted 6 heads of buttercrunch lettuce and 2 rows of lettuce from seed. One row was Black Simpson leaf lettuce and the other – as an experiment – was Vivian lettuce, similar to romaine with the texture of buttercrunch.
With my well-tilled and fertilized garden, plus cool weather, and a little rain – my lettuce crops exploded.
One nice thing was that I was able to easily pull the lettuce plants up by the roots. Then I clipped the bottoms off above the dirt with some garden shears and cleaning the lettuce in the sink was a piece of cake.
After I rinsed the lettuce, I spun the leaves in a salad spinner, then put the lettuce in plastic Ziplocs and in the fridge to cool. Serving cold lettuce and in chilled bowls directly from the fridge makes all the difference.
Looks like I will get lettuce for maybe another week or so before it begins to head and gets bitter. But boy have I enjoyed these fresh salads like no other year.
By the way, even if you don’t have a garden space, lettuce is super easy to grow. Get a section of rain gutters, fill it with potting soil, sprinkle in seeds and hang it on a fence. Keep it watered and you’ll have tons of lettuce for your salads.
