Lettuce – pretty in your flower beds.

When choosing lettuce, you really are spoilt for choice. I like the texture and taste of Cos type lettuce so I always grow a row or two of them. I start them off  by sowing a pinch of seed in a 3 inch pot and when they are large enough to handle, I transplant into rows which are 6 ins apart, leaving 3ins between plants. This means that when they become a bit crowded, I pick alternative plants for salads. Lettuce seed will not germinate if the temperature is too high so you can only do this in the spring. If you want to sow more lettuce in the summer, you must do so outside. Alternately, sow loads in the spring and do not prick them out. Leaving them crowded will stop them growing and you can then plant them out when you want them. You must be careful, though, that they do not become ‘leggy’ because they are fighting for light.

I also grow one of more red lettuces but these I grow in flower beds as well as the vegetable patch.  Last year I grew Ultimate mixed lettuces from the Thomson and Morgan seed catalogue and found them to be  very good.  I used the green round type lettuce as a cut and come again lettuce and this worked well.  However, this year I think I will try Colour shade mix as a cut and come again lettuce and add Lollo  Rosso as a addition. I have grown Lollo Rosso in the past and have found it’s frilled leaves very attractive in flower beds and it also tastes good as well as looking good in the salad bowl. I do not suffer from aphids much (although I do get white fly on my Roses) and the only problems I have growing lettuces are slugs and snails and cabbage white butterfly.

Whilst there are chemicals which will dispose of Cabbage White Butterfly caterpillers, I find that it is really quite easy to dispose of them by keeping a sharp eye on your lettuce and brassicas and killing the eggs before they hatch. The eggs are red  and are laid on the underside of leaves . They are easily disposed of by rubbing them with your thumb.

I use salt to kill slugs and snails. It is better for me and the environment than chemicals. Birds don’t mind salt on their slugs but slug pellets are poisinous and will kill them.