Lettuces

I planted some lettuce seeds a bit late in the spring (that's why they look the way they do) to see what they would be like, and to create more seeds for future use in the garden. The one to the right is Wakefield and the one below is Austrian Yellow. It really is amazing what they taste like when you do a taste-test! I didn't realize how different they would taste from each other. The Austrian Yellow lettuce tasted "green" and the Wakefield lettuce tasted "sweet." One year I did a tasted test of five different kinds of tomatoes that I was growing, thinking they all tasted the same, but I found that they didn't, and that I really didn't like the taste of the Brandywine tomatoes at all. It was really interesting! Here in the valley we can
grow lettuces all winter long. They aren't affected by the frosts, and grow big, tender leaves. I grow leaf lettuce because I have found (for me personally) that head lettuce doesn't do so well (you could experiment and let me know how it works for you--seeds are cheap!). They get full of earwigs, slugs and other crawlies, and never really produce. The leaf lettuces, on the other hand, really go all out and are mostly bug free! If you want to grow leaf lettuce now, you need to find seeds that are specifically for summer planting, otherwise they will go to seed right away and you will get nothing to eat from them. I have purchased seeds of beautiful mixed summer lettuces from http://www.cooksgarden.com/ although there are many places to buy the seeds. The lettuces above are winter or early spring lettuces and I have them under a trellis to temper the sun's heat. Summer lettuces will need to be covered in some manner to reduce the heat and keep them happy. There are shade cloths to cover vegetables, lettuce can be grown in pots under trees, in the shade of taller garden plants, or they can be grown under a patio cover if there is bright light. Lettuce needs a bit of sun, just not too much. Deep mulch will also help to keep the lettuce cool.

Today is the first quarter of the moon.

Today and tomorrow we are in Cancer---this is #1 for growing all crops and transplanting into the garden; it is good for making seed beds.