Keep It Sweet – Lettuce
Last year’s lettuce was fabulous. My mom had told me a couple of years ago that I shouldn’t plant my own lettuce because it becomes bitter. Her experience left a bitter taste in her mouth (pun intended) So, as always, I wanted to find out why and did a little research and experimenting.
This is what I discovered:
- If you are having problems with your lettuce tasting bitter, pick it in the morning, wash and dry it and put it in the fridge for a day. It should sweeten up. The hot sun of the day can dry it out and make it bitter. It usually recoups over night in the dew.
- Be sure to water the lettuce in the morning – the water helps the lettuce survive the hot sun later in the day that can strip it of its sweetness.
- We also added 2 year compost with ground up coconut to our garden. It was a terrific addition – all of our plants grew luscious and produced much more fruit and vegis than the year before. We used NO fertilizers either, which made us all glad for a more nutritious yield.
What are you are growing this year and do you have any tips you might like to pass a long?
If you’re interested in growing herbs, my friend Karen is an expert at it. Visit her blog at To Work With My Hands and do a search on Herbs. She has several posts about various herbs that are quite informative.
If you’re interested in DIY and would like to make your own homemade chalky paint, I have a free PDF of 4 Homemade Chalky Paint Recipes that I can send you via email. Until Next time – be AMAZING and don’t forget to comment with details about YOUR garden!
Oh how I miss our garden… pinning this for the future though lovely. Thankyou for sharing! Roll on Narrowboat pot gardens!
I've started a few seeds indoors, lettuce, spinach, carrots, radish and tomatoe. Everything else will be direct seed in a few weeks.
Lots of rain here just to wet to start planting outdoors. Try direct composting, it's wonderful and animal manure is a must.
We've been eating a lot of salads lately. My hubby and I prefer to eat the sweeter lettuces because they really make a big difference in the overall taste of salads. It's much more fun to eat healthy when it tastes sweeter!
I’ve gotten heads of lettuce from the store that smell and taste bitter – probably because they are old. It’s what started me growing my own.
I've never considered water being a factor in sweet lettuce. For us here in the deep south, it's all about heat – regardless of the time of day. Once the temperatures begin rising, lettuces become bitter and bolt. There isn't really much that can be done (which is why our best lettuces are grown througout the winter with cover when necessary). I've grown some deliciously sweet lettuce over winter here.
Even now, it's too warm for us to grow it. When I was taking apart our raised bed this past week for our move, the lettuces I had sown in the fall were tall and inedible. The arugula – I wish I had taken a photo. They were as tall as I am and I may or may not have sat down hard when I pulled them out of the ground!
I'm going to follow your tips when I sow lettuce again this fall. A delicious, sweet salad is wonderful!
And thank you for your sweet and kind referral! 🙂
Karen, I’m so looking forward to my lettuce this year! I’ve started seeds indoors but have the itch to start them all just so I can see those tiny little things pop up out of the dirt!