In this Mediterranean garden I plant lettuce between September and May. The mild winters are wonderful for growing lettuce and lots of other hardy greens and vegetables like cabbages and beets. Summers are definitely too hot – even when grown under a shade canopy, lettuces won’t thrive, will suffer from pests, and will taste bitter.
Sowing or planting lettuce?
I’ve planted seedlings from the garden center and sown lettuces – both work very well. I prefer seedlings though since we’re just two people after all and with sowing we will end up eating green salads twice a day for weeks on end. It may be healthy but it’s not fun.
More Lettuce for the Money
One trick I’ve discovered over the years to make more than one salad out of each seedling: cut the head off and let the lettuce re-grow. It will work at least one if not two times before the quality deteriorates.
Sowing Lamb’s Lettuce
Another trick for sowing lamb’s lettuce: Toss the seeds into the veggie bed and do not thin out the seedlings. Let them all grow and then successively pull out the biggest or most crowded ones with the root so the others can grow as well. A lot less work and a lot more lamb’s lettuce for the same money.
Fedia cornucopiae
I discovered this variety of lamb’s lettuce on the website of Kokopelli and was intrigued since it’s supposed to grow wild in the Mediterranean on fields or in olive groves. I’ve sown it under our olive tree and it has come up wonderfully, providing bright green nutty tasting lamb’s lettuce for many weeks before starting to produce very pretty pink flowers that lasted for at least another month before turning into seeds. Hopefully it will reseed itself and come back every year.
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