Cut and Come Again Lettuce Triumpheter
When I had a market garden, I grew 200-human foot rows of lettuce. The rows contained my own mixture of lettuce varieties, chosen for taste, colour, and foliage shape, and I cut the leaves immature for the mesclun mix I sold to local chefs. Twice a calendar week my two young administration and I knelt in the white clover pathways to shear the baby plants.
Most of the dozen or then lettuce varieties were the blazon described every bit cutting lettuces, which obligingly and vigorously sprout a fresh crop of leaves when they are snipped off simply a couple of inches above the ground. They are ofttimes called cut-and-come-again lettuces.
Cutting lettuces are by and large nonheading foliage varieties from two groups, Grand Rapids and oakleaf. The Grand Rapids grouping produces broad, crinkled, and frilly leaves, while the oakleaf varieties have flatter and distinctively lobed leaves. Both groups include cherry-red and green varieties and several red-green combinations. All make keen garden design elements.
Paint the garden with lettuce
Whatever else I grow, I ever have plenty of 'Black-Seeded Simpson', an heirloom. I don't bother with picayune packets; I buy information technology by the ounce, about 25,000 seeds. Properly stored, lettuce seed stays viable for iii years. 'Black-Seeded Simpson' is so reliable I apply information technology as the standard for judging the germination success of other varieties. A fast grower, it produces crinkly, juicy, yellowish-green leaves. Its only shortcoming is a trend to bolt in summer estrus; it does best in bound and fall here on Long Island.
One of the best summer performers I accept found is romaine: a French cos, 'Craquerelle du Midi'. When every other lettuce in my garden is getting bitter or defiantly announcing its plans to ready seed, this ane stays mild and leafy.
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The red or green lobed leaves of the oakleaf types are pillars of the looseleaf establishment. There are at least half a dozen varieties of each color ordinarily found in seed catalogs. 'Oakleaf' is the original old standby that yields crisp, tender, light greenish leaves and keeps going through moderate heat. Although information technology has deeply lobed leaves, 'Salad Bowl' is not a true oakleaf. Simply information technology is an All-America Selections winner that produces rosettes of frail lime-green leaves and also has skillful heat tolerance.
Tops for reliability, even through a hot summertime, is 'Scarlet Sails'. Another All-America Selections winner, it'south a fast grower with green and cerise-statuary leaves.
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A 1998 introduction that did well for me was 'Dark-green Vision', which produces dark-green, glossy, savoyed leaves; it is a tedious bolter. 'Lollo Rossa' has calorie-free-dark-green leaves with elegant rosy margins, while its cousin, 'Lollo Biondo', is pure pale green. Both 'Lollo' cultivars are deeply curled, heat tolerant, and very decorative both in the garden and in salads.
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Stepping beyond the looseleaf varieties, there are some butterheads and romaine I like to grow as cut lettuces. They will also sprout new leaves, if less energetically than the looseleaf varieties.
Of the butterheads, 'Ermosa' has dark green leaves and stands up to a fair corporeality of summer rut. In a weak prespring moment, I ordered seed for romaine called 'Freckles' or 'Trout Back', simply because I liked its name. I wish all my weak moments worked out this well. It is a beautiful lettuce—lime dark-green flecked with vino-red markings—and has a fresh, delicate taste.
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Ameliorate ways to sow small seeds
Because they are harvested while very young, cut lettuces can exist planted in fairly dense bands. Instead of broadcasting seed, it is but as like shooting fish in a barrel to sow rows about 3 inches apart, with ½ inch to 1 inch between plants in the row. I have found that information technology takes less time to institute seed carefully than to sparse seedlings; besides, if non done properly, thinning often disturbs the roots of the seedlings that are left.
There are several ways to sow seed to eliminate thinning. The simplest is to mix the seed with dry architect's sand (not salty embankment sand), using about twice every bit much sand as seed. This makes it easier to dribble seeds at fairly even spacing down a marked row. An inexpensive little gadget that distributes seed much meliorate than a seed packet is the Seed Sower, which has five dissimilar-size outlets to control the flow of seeds down a tapered spout.
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For garden rows, my sometime reliable is an Earthway Seeder, for which I at present accept a dozen seed plates for different seed types and spacings. It makes a furrow, plants the seed at whatsoever depth I want, covers it, and firms the footing, all in i pass.
Last flavor I experimented with the Pinpoint Precision Seeder, which can handle six seed sizes. It'due south smaller and more maneuverable than the Earthway, and it works well with a finely tilled, debris-gratuitous bed; however, information technology is a bit finicky in less-than-perfect conditions. A larger version sows four rows 2¼ inches apart, perfect for mesclun.
If enough infinite is available, or just to confuse pests, I sometimes skip the cut-and-come up-again routine in favor of harvest, hoe, rake, and reseed. I harvest the immature plants, roots and all, stir the soil upwards with a stirrup hoe, rake the bed flat, and sow fresh seed.
Go along the soil rich
Lettuce likes a adequately rich, sandy loam. I till the beds and let them settle for a calendar week before applying nearly an inch of well-rotted manure or compost, which I piece of work into the near-surface zone with the stirrup hoe. After harvesting leaves, I revive the plants with a weakfish or seaweed emulsion, or a manure tea. I accept a siphon gadget on my drip-irrigation system that allows me to feed emulsion or filtered manure tea down the lines. Most drip systems can be fitted with something similar.
Lettuce volition grow, if not thrive, in less than ideal soil, but one thing information technology must have is water, about an inch per week. Drip irrigation puts h2o merely where a plant needs information technology. Overhead watering wastes a lot of water, and at the wrong fourth dimension—such as tardily in the 24-hour interval or in hot, muggy weather—it encourages fungal diseases.
Slugs love lettuce as much every bit I practise, merely luckily they seem to adopt beer. A few saucers of dried beer aid them drown their sorrows and themselves. I tried sugar water once, which worked, but my bees liked information technology even more than the slugs did.
Cutworms can be a hassle, but usually they won't do too much damage to a fairly dumbo band of plants. Untilled soil can harbor cutworms, so I till my beds in leap while the atmospheric condition is still cold plenty to kill overwintered cutworm pupae and eggs. If cutworms become a real problem, I add parasitic nematodes to the soil about a week earlier planting.
How to grow lettuce
In the home garden, sowing every calendar week will ensure a abiding and generous supply of lettuce. Each sowing yields three or four cuttings earlier the plants are wearied. As a rough guide to quantity, sowing about 3 anxiety of row every week will keep one omnivorous developed well supplied with salad from spring to fall; a vegetarian might consume twice as much.
Lettuces prefer absurd temperatures, just by sowing every week, choosing oestrus-tolerant varieties, and using shade-cloth tunnels, I tin can produce lettuce right through my Zone seven summers. It is easy to keep the supply going right into wintertime past growing winter varieties in cold frames or tunnels of row-comprehend fabric. The same tunnels can be used, covered instead with 50 percent shade cloth, to protect heat-sensitive lettuce from the summer sun.
And only because information technology's hot doesn't mean I stop sowing lettuce. When temperatures hit the 80s, lettuce seeds will not germinate, then I start seeds in flats in a cool room indoors and set the plants in the garden when they accept two sets of truthful leaves.
From early spring until the first of winter, I cut lettuces and keep several salad bowls generously supplied. Just lettuce is skilful for more but salads. Attempt information technology in a creamy soup or wrapped effectually vinegared sushi rice for a tempting titbit.
Sources
Burpee
300 Park Ave.
Warminster, PA 18991
800-888-1447
www.burpee.com
The Cook's Garden
PO Box 535
Londonderry, VT 05148
800-457-9703
Hermosa Valley Garden Seeds
PO Box 1409
Santa Maria, CA 93456
877-834-7333
Johnny'southward Selected Seeds
955 Benton Artery
Winslow, ME 04901
877-564-6697
www.johnnysseeds.com
Source: https://www.finegardening.com/project-guides/fruits-and-vegetables/cut-and-come-again-lettuce-sampler
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