Freckles Cos Lettuce
PLEASE NOTE: In hot summers you should try and provide some shade (especially from midday sun) and plenty of moisture for lettuces. Also lettuce seed may not germinate if the soil is too warm, so you may need to use seedlings or a cool area for propogation.
Some okay summer lettuces:Freckles Lettuce is a type of cos lettuce which did fairly well in a hot summer (up to 42 C, but mainly around 30 C), only bolting after about 8 weeks with plenty of nice leaves before that. Available through Eden Seeds. Another lettuce that performed even better was the Yugoslavian lettuce (also through Eden). The Yugoslavian is an open hearted variety with ruffled edges. It has had no problems with bugs and no bitterness. It also set a good deal of seed that is easily collected by even absolute beginners. Just wait until it flowers - this will happen when the lettuce gets a big stalk in the middle that grows as high as 1 meter - then a short time later you will notice feathery white things poking out of the old flower, this means the seed is ready. Just pick the individual buds and leave the rest, then open them and you should see the seed there. Keep doing this for a week or so and you should have enough seed to plant again or save. Make sure it's dry before putting it away, or you can just sow it again in a nice spot.
Great Lakes lettuce and mignoette lettuces are also okay for hot summers - again in semi-shaded spots.
Remember lettuce doesn't mind it a bit cold as the picture of the frozen one below shows... though they really like temperature somehwere between being frozen and being fried by intense heat - in many places this will mean growing in spring or autumn, and in some it will mean growing in summer but not winter and vice versa. By the way frozen lettuce doesn't taste as good as it looks, and for some reason lettuce if they get too cold in the fridge they will be ruined.
Frozen Lettuce (I think it might be a brown cos type)
Brown
Romaine Lettuce
Growing Vegetables in a Dry Spot Using Old Milk Cartons
Organic Gardening Tips and Books for the Novices and even Experts
Advice Especially for the Sub-Tropical Organic Gardener
Colourful Carrots From Around the World
Seed Suppliers Page (Australia)
Seed Savers' Network Byron Bay
Tomatoes (Including diseases and fruitfly in tomatoes)
Green Paddocks Publishing and Producing Australia
The Chai Wallah Picture Publishing Project
Farming with Bev and Peter Brock in Nutfield
OriginLettuce developed from lactuca serriola a tall (when flowering) weed that is still found in a wide variety of places throughout Europe, North Africa and Asia. It seems to have been first cultivated around the Caucasus (Azerbaijan and Georgia), in Kurdistan, Kashmir and Siberia. The ancient Romans also used to grow a cos lettuce similar to Rabbit's Ear lettuce. Other reports even point back as far as 4500 BC, to the Egyptians. (For more information on this visit Egypt and study some tomb paintings). |
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Rabbit's Ear Lettuce
This ever-so-popular salad vegetable comes in many shades and sizes. The supermarket favourite "heading" lettuces were only developed in the 16th century (when they had not-so-super markets). And the common Great Lakes lettuces sprouted up just before World War Two (actually they're more close to the large, round, common supermarket varieties). Today there are thousands of lettuce for the connoisseur, the multi-national hamburger joints, and the average "I just want something green and chewy on my sandwich" types. Apart from the fat old round one, the most popular - though this is totally conjecture - must be the cos lettuce. The cos comes in many different forms, from the popular quite large green ones to small redy-brown types. |
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Caesar Cardini
put the cos to good use in 1924 when he created the now world-famous
Caesar Salad.
Simple Salad Dressing RecipeThis isn't a Caesar, but it's quick and nice. Simply squeeze in a bowl or conatiner one half a lemon, five times as much light flavoured olive oil, a splash or two of Modena balsamic vinegar and one good teaspoon of French wholegrain mustard. Stir or shake it all together and voila, you can add it to your salad. For some variation you could also add some Greek oregano leaves, or garlic or paprika capsicum. What varieties to grow?Really the question should be: what varieties not to grow, you should try and grow as many types as you possibly can . Some common names to look out for when choosing lettuce seed(of course these can vary greatly from continent to continent and even in Iceland)Freckles Lettuce, Lollo Rosso, Lollo Verde, Royal Oak Leaf, Blonde a Bord Rouge, Frisee de Beauregard, Merville de Quatre Saisons, Capella, Pia, Crescendo, Debbie, Cynthia, Bunyard's Matchless, Marvel, Cosmic. I've grown the ancient Bunyard's Matchless and found it to be very hardy and good value. Its leaves are kind of pointy and it looks groovy. I vaguely remember the flavour to be okay too. But of course when making a salad it is nice to just wander around the garden and throw heaps of different coloured and shaped leaves in. As long as it's not too bitter - a problem with some varieties in hot summers - chuck it in! But remember to wash it as snails and things can crawl out of your bowl. Many gardeners find that some lettuce varieties are so attractive that they have incorporated them into landscaped gardens. Villandry gardens, in France have good examples of this and a local count actually decided to marry a Merville de Quatre Saisons lettuce. He was later executed by order of the pope. Lettuce CultivationVery rich, well drained soil with loads of well broken down compost and nitrogen-rich organic fertilisers. If you look after them they'll look after you. Also keep them nice and moist to avoid them "bolting", or going to seed, too quickly. They have a pretty high water requirement, similar to carrots.You also might want to put them in a cooler, semi-shaded, spot during the hot summer months, especially in sub-tropical places like Byron Bay and the Gold Coast. You can certainly plant them in pots with top quality potting mixture - preferably homemade compost. This mixture should be able to be crumbled in your hand, and not have large un-broken down scraps in. You can add a little high-nitrogen fertiliser and apply regular liquid seaweed fertilisers during the growing season. Remember: Chickens and Lettuces make for poor bed-mates. Keep them separated.This is also the case with goats and lettuce. Though it is useful to keep goats away from most vegetable crops. Goats and chickens, on the other hand, seem to get along fine.Plant at regular intervals, depending on your location in the world, to keep a year round supply of fresh salad. Even in very cold climates, lettuce can be successfully grown in small hot-houses during the winter. They just grow a little slower and you'll have to choose good varieties. They can't get any frost on them in general however. Finally, save your seed! All you have to do is leave a lettuce (choose the best looking one or two) until it shoots up a tall stem from the middle of the plant. Then wait a few weeks until they get a fluffy cotton-like stuff coming out of their small flowers. Be nosey and look inside. Hopefully you'll see some little seeds there.They are one of the easiest crops to get seed from and you may even find little lettuce sprouting up around your old plants if you leave them there long enough. Index
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