Lettuce, More Than Just 80% Water

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This is one of those ideas that is insanely simple yet effective. Grow a couple of lettuce varieties with pretty leaf shapes and bright colours. Put them together in a container that sets off their leaf colours or grow them in individual pots of a contrasting colour. In this case I have two leaf lettuce varieties with very curly leaves and contrasting colours (‘Ruby’ and ‘Henderson’s Black-Seeded Simpson’) set off by a black metal container. Hint: Chartreuse and yellowish greens always looks good when paired with deep reds or purple.

The key to keeping lettuce happy on a hot deck is to move the container to a less intense spot when the heat of summer kicks in and make sure to keep the soil moist — they’ll get bitter faster if they experience too much drought. You can cut each leaf off individually (remove from the outside if you want to keep a nice rosette) or just chop the whole thing off about an inch or so from the soil line and set the plant aside (somewhere less visible unless you’re comfortable with the stubby bits on display) until it grows back a second harvest.

By the end of the second round the leaves are usually too bitter to eat. Don’t toss it out into the composter just yet! You can still get some use out of your lettuce by setting the plant into hotter sun (don’t forget to water!) and allowing the plant to bolt. Bolting is when a plant produces flowers and then seeds prematurely in a mad rush to reproduce itself when the growing conditions become too extreme. This is usually caused by the increasing heat of summer and intense sun. The colour will often deepen in hotter sun and some lettuce varieties will grow into crazy, alien towers with pretty flowers perched on top. Don’t bother trying to eat it at this point since it will taste horrible and ooze a gluey substance when cut, but it makes a very cheap and easy bright spot when set amongst boring edibles like tomatoes and potatoes.

Gayla Trail
Gayla is a writer, photographer, and former graphic designer with a background in the Fine Arts, cultural criticism, and ecology. She is the author, photographer, and designer of best-selling books on gardening, cooking, and preserving.

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8 thoughts on “Lettuce, More Than Just 80% Water

  1. I’m growing lettuce in containers as well this season (Buttercrunch and Bibb). Neither are of the curly leaf variety. On the seed packets they both showed heads of lettuce. I’m just getting loose leaves… Is there some trick to getting them to grow in heads? I do agree that they look very nice in their planters, though.

  2. This is very timely considering I just cut my first head of lettuce last night and was wondering what I should do with the remaining stub. Thanks so much for such thorough information.

  3. I planted just one lettuce last october and it just kept producing up until about a month or so ago. So i tried to plant some lettuce in the ground of my veggie garden I got lots of sprouts the first two days, but after that they just “dissapeared” they are almost in compplete direct sunlight so from what you mention about i guess that is why I lost them, but i replaced them with green beans and by golly they are growing plentiful! we have corn that should be ready at the end of the month plenty of cucummbers we are going to pickle and jar tomorrow, and diff. tomato varieties that are feeding the whole neighborhood. my garden and my neighbors garden was sort of a competition, but ended up both being awesome so now we share back and forth our crops and share with the whole neighborhood. even though they are in our backyards we tell the neighbors the are our “community garden” and randomly at different hours of the day you will find a neighbor creeping out back to pick some fresh cucumbers, mustard greens, green beans, and okra. i love it. brings much community to a sort of hard run down part of town. we hadn’t talked so much to our neighbors since the gradens. we are even planning a “block party” where everyone is goign to bring something and include something from the gardens. A TRUE GARDEN PARTY!

  4. wow Irene, that sounds awesome! Gardening, or maybe more specifically: food, can really bring people together! I can’t wait for my beans and peas and cucumbers and tomatoes. You must be in a warmer zone.

  5. I planted cut and come back lettuce and I just manage to eat the first round. Which is good because I feel like I am finnally getting my greens. I also have a lot of Kale and spinach which are tasty and can be unique looking plants. Irene your community gardens sound really incredible and inspiring. Our block could benefit from something like that.

  6. I planted cut and come back lettuce and I just manage to eat the first round. Which is good because I feel like I am finnally getting my greens. I also have a lot of Kale and spinach which are tasty and can be unique looking plants. Irene your community gardens sound really incredible and inspiring. Our block could benefit from something like that.

  7. oh thank you it is. I wish I knew a way to post picture. Yes I do live in a warmer climate. I live in San Antonio, Texas and it is always hot! I acutally have to grow most of my veggies almost under my pecan tree. I live in a cul-de-sac so our backyards are oddly shaped and huge so in the far off corner i fenced it off from my pups and dug up a garden. San Antonio doesn’t have a community garden that I know of that is “for the city” but on our street we pass fruit and veggies back and forth. It’s like our own little club or something. It’s cute, because a little old man who lives next door told me today he bought a riding lawn mower so he can cut all of our yards. Sweet sweet people. Thank God for great neighbors with yummy treats!

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