Selecting Super Salads

Flower & Garden Magazine, June, 1999 by Andrea Ray Chandler

Don't let your salad bowl get sunk by Icebergs! The price of lettuce goes up and down with every change of the weather. Nearly everyone grows tomatoes, but fewer gardeners grow lettuces. Why is that? Well, many of us think of "lettuce" as being that pale head of Iceberg we get at the market. Or we've tried growing lettuces and they either got tough and bitter or bolted to seed quickly, leaving us saladless when the tomatoes finally ripened in late summer.

Go beyond that wedge of Iceberg to explore the potpourri of different greens that make salads a fresh experience every time! A combination of techniques, such as choosing different cultivars, using light shade and sowing more than once a growing season will make you a winner at the Salad Bowl, even during the summer.

THE WHO'S WHO OF LETTUCE

Crisphead lettuces include the well-known Iceberg and other tightly packed lettuces. Batavians are loosely headed. Romaine lettuces have upright leaves with crisp ribs, and they are familiar from Caesar salads. Butterhead or Bibb lettuces have loosely packed heads with tender, wavy leaves. Endives are frilly loose-leaf heads often included in blends for their piquant flavor. Loose-leaf lettuces do not make a solid head, but rather a clump of leaves. Leaf shapes and colors of loose-leaf lettuces vary, including red and green combinations.

Crisphead lettuces, like the Iceberg, are sometimes trickier to grow. That's why the catalogs offer a greater variety of loose-leaf lettuces.

And what a variety! Although we can't guarantee which cultivars each catalog will sell from year to year, discerning companies know to stock not only lettuces that like the cool spring and autumn weather, but also those that tolerate warmer summer weather and those that will overwinter under covers.

GROWING BETTER LETTUCES

Leafy greens grow best in loose soil with good nutrient levels and even watering. Lettuces are shallow-rooted plants. Irregular watering, especially during hot weather, results in toughness and bitterness. Wind stress also makes greens tough. If your garden is in a windy area, you can reduce the hardship to your plants by putting up a windbreak. A 50 percent permeable windbreak fabric will slow down the wind. Solid barriers simply lift the wind and drop it further away, without a reduction in speed.

Mulches will slow down evaporation, and a 1-inch layer of herbicide-free grass clippings will also provide needed nitrogen. If you have trouble with slugs, then avoid mulches.

For heat-tolerant summer lettuces, give them a little shade. There are several ways to do this:

* Select a location that has shade during the hotter afternoon hours.

* Grow them under a lattice.

* Place them on the north side of trellised crops such as pole beans.

* Stretch a shade cloth in a tent over the lettuce patch.

Southern growers can plant lettuces in February and have spinach and kale all winter. In the Southwest, seasons are extreme, and salads are best grown during the cooler months of September through February.

For cold-tolerant winter lettuces, transplant them out in a cold frame in the early autumn so that they reach most of their mature size before the temperature drops (around Nov. 1 in Zone 5). Do not fertilize heavily; excess nitrogen creates weaker cell walls. Then harvest as needed through the cold months. Lettuces don't really grow under these conditions; they merely hibernate, kept in perfect condition. Be sure to whisk snow off of cold frames to let in light. Actually, snow is a great insulator on the sides of cold frames, and it reflects lots of light, so snow is beneficial.

SOW FREQUENTLY

Because lettuce is an annual, it is prone to "bolting," or going to seed. This is fine if you are planning on saving those dried seed fluffs, but if you want salad, it is a problem. Bolted lettuces taste bitter because they have more sap. (The Latin name for lettuce is Lactuca, referring to the milky sap.)

To avoid this, don't plant all your lettuces at the first spring sowing. Instead, sow just a 4-foot-by-4-foot or 2-foot-by-4-foot block every two or three weeks. This ensures an ongoing supply of young plants. Lettuces sprout best at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and grow best between 50 and 60 F. Transplants will work best in warm weather--quick in and quick out.

Fertilize plants with nitrogen-rich cottonseed meal, liquid seaweed/fish emulsion or well-rotted manure, whichever is most commonly found in your area.

Little piles of sand around plants will keep slugs at bay. Insecticidal soap will take care of aphids and earwigs. And a sprinkling of red or black pepper will keep rabbits from eating your salads (reapply pepper after rains).

What should you do about the bolting plants? Simply rototill them under, yank them and chuck them into the compost pile -- or better yet, let them produce free seeds for your taking!

PICKING ONCE, PICKING TWICE

You can pick a whole head of loose-leaf lettuce, such as a romaine, or you can just pick the outer leaves and leave the inner heart of the plant. This means you pick no more than you need for that meal's salad, ensuring both the freshest lettuces for the table, and that the other half a head is not withering away in the crisper drawer. Instead, it's living happily out in the vegetable garden and continuing to produce.