Lettuce Entertain You

I don't know why I find lettuce so amusing. Maybe it's the gorgeous palette, from neon chartreuse to deep burgundy. Maybe it's the array of shapes from tight iceberg globes to enormous frizzy heads.Or the fact that it tolerates shade and can grow in my getting-shaded-out side beds without a hint of concern.

Lettuce is one of the best ways for new gardeners to learn succession planting. Many gardening books suggest planting a short row of lettuce, then another length of row a few weeks later. That works, but I hate to see two-thirds of a row sitting empty when it could have something in it. I plant whole rows as soon as the soil is no longer soupy in the spring, then start trays of replacement plants inside. When I pop out a lettuce plant--and I just harvest the whole plant rather than picking leaves most of the time--I can just pop a new seedling in its place.

In the spring, I plant cool-season lettuce varieties outside but start heat-tolerant types indoors. Once we hit mid-summer I start trays of cool-weather lettuces indoors to sub into the garden bed in early autumn, then switch over to spinach and Oriental salad greens to close out the outdoor gardening season. Once you get in this habit of thinking about lettuce in terms of continual starting, planting and harvesting through the growing season, it's easy to transfer that mindset to other crops and corners of the garden.

Lettuce is also fun to tuck in just about anywhere: hanging baskets, flower pots, between young tomato plants where they will be harvested before the tomatoes take over the bed. Miniature varieties like Tom Thumb are particularly well suited to inter-planting between bigger veggie crops. Plant some between rows of tall vegetables like brussels sprouts or under the ferny asparagus once it has passed the spring spear stage.

Unlike many garden vegetables these days, lettuce seed remains an inexpensive pleasure, and the dozens of varieties offered in garden seed companies like those at High Mowing Seeds, a Vermont grower that sells all organic seed mostly raised at their own seed farm in Wolcott, provide hours of catalog reading pleasure. Just remember that lettuce seed needs light to germinate -- sprinkle it lightly over the surface of damp seed starting mix then rub the surface with your hand just enough to ensure the seeds won't blow away. It's never too late to start lettuce, so peruse the garden-store racks now and get started on your late summer lettuce entertainment.