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In My Garden Blog

March 30, 2006
Pacific Northwest
By Patt Kasa,
Seattle, WA

This bounty of greens was harvested in mid-March from seeds sown in early January. Spring must be just around the corner!

Loads of Lettuce

I love lettuce picked fresh from the garden. It's the perfect all-season crop, producing crisp, succulent leaves from early March through the following January in my garden. Lettuce grows best in cool weather in rich, moist soil. It's sensitive to frost and summer heat, but with a little nurturing, you can successfully grow lettuce year-round in your garden, too.

We built a cold frame next to the foundation of our house, and it's probably the best investment we've ever made. It's a bottomless box with a transparent lid, and while it doesn't sound like much, it's extremely versatile. It provides just the right environment to protect tender perennials from frost, but I also use it to propagate woody plants, force bulbs, and harden off vegetable seedlings. And, of course, I use it to grow lettuce and other greens during the winter months.

Getting an Early Start
I begin the season in January, sowing seeds of cold-tolerant greens directly in the soil under the protection of the cold frame. My favorites include 'Audran' bibb, 'Tom Thumb' butterhead, and 'Winter Density', a short romaine. Just to keep the salad bowl interesting, I plant 'Tres Fine' endive, 'Roquette' arugula, and 'Tyee' spinach. These greens can be harvested when the leaves are only a few inches tall. If you snip just one or two leaves from each plant, you'll have plenty of greens for a salad, and the plants will continue to produce for many weeks.

Marching Across the Garden
When the weather warms in early April, I sow seeds of looseleaf lettuce in a sunny garden site, protecting the seedlings from late frosts with Reemay, a floating row cover. I sow only a few seeds of each variety, creating a patchwork-quilt pattern in the bed, and producing a diversity of textures and flavors for salads. Before a meal, I circle my lettuce bed, snipping off a leaf here and there until I have enough for a fine salad.

Lettuce bolts in the summer heat, so as the season progresses, I plant my greens in a shady garden bed. They often share space with hostas and ferns, where light is bright but the air and soil are cool. I choose heat-tolerant cultivars, which are not so apt to bolt if the summer turns hot. 'Four Seasons' is a favorite butterhead, and I've had good success with 'Salinas', a rather loose iceberg-type lettuce. These are such pretty plants that I sometimes tuck a few into the perennial beds where they will be shaded by taller edibles, such as nasturtiums and calendulas.

One More Move
As autumn approaches I return to a sunny garden site, usually one just vacated by summer squash or eggplant, and sow seeds of cool-season greens, again protecting the seedlings from frost with a floating row cover. As I harvest the last of the lettuce from the plot, I begin the process all over again by sowing seeds in the cold frame for tasty winter treats.

Your comments about summer sun cause me to ask, what about a shade
frame? We only have a small area south of a brick wall for a garden.
Tomatos love it but the lettuce bolts. So, could we build some sort
of a frame about a foot high and cover it with some sort of cloth to
break the direct sunlight so the lettuce thinks it is in nice warm
shade? If this is a good idea, could you suggest a height for the
frame and what kind of (density of) cloth to put over it. How early
should we deploy the cover? Thank you.

Lettuce tends to bolt when the temperatures warm and day length is
long. While a shade cloth will keep sunshine off the plants, it
won't change the temperature in the garden area you describe. I'd
vote for planting in the early spring and again in the fall, when
temperatures are cool. Choosing slow-bolting lettuces and planting
them in containers so you can move them around the shady parts of
your garden might also be an option.

My Pacific Northwest friends refuse to grow lettuce anymore because
of slugs & snails. Any tips on protecting lettuces from slug & snail
damage?

Slugs and snails are abundant in western Washington, and they do
love to dine on lettuce. There are two ways to keep the critters
away from your lettuce. First, beer. Yes, it really does work. It’s
also the best non-personal way to confirm that overnight damage is
due to the slimy beasts. Just don’t use the often-cited “stale
beer”, which slugs like about as much as you and I do. Place
commercial traps or old margarine tubs on top of the soil close to
the damaged plants, wait until dusk and then fill them with the
cheapest—but freshest—beer you can find. The next morning, they
should be filled with dead drunken slugs. Dump this defeated debris
nearby (where it will attract their cannibalistic pals) and repeat
every evening.

The seccond approach is to use Iron phosphate. Turns out that iron
is very bad for a slug’s digestion. Like deadly bad. So a new
generation of products with brand names like “Sluggo” and
“Escar-Go!” wrap iron in a slug-attracting bait. You simply scatter
the pellets around plants in peril to wipe out the pests without
poisons. (And a little extra iron is good for your garden soil.)

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