My Favorite Lettuce

I apologize for not posting in a couple months. There just wasn't anything interesting to post. I hope your holidays were good. Welcome to a new year!  2018 Wow! 

In SoCal, the best weather(in my opinion) is Fall through Spring. It's cooler. We get rain. It's easier to work outdoors. There's no sweating. I love this time of year when I don't have to buy lettuce in the grocery store for a few months! I grow leaf lettuce instead of head lettuce. That means you can pick leaves off the plant and it still grows. Thats unlike head lettuce where you wait until it is full and pick the entire plant.

Most of the lettuce in this bed has come up well.  There are some empty patches.  The green is super easy while the red leaf is a little harder to get to sprout for me.  

I don't have as good luck with my summer vegetables.  I just can't keep them well watered!  I've tried tomatoes.  I usually grow zucchini and basil.  But last year was so hot I only got a few pieces of zucchini from my 5 plants! 

This is the north bed with lettuce, spinach and sweet peas.  There is also a grape vine and a patch of onion chives that are perennial. And there's ONE Sweet Pea blooming already. What?  

My favorite lettuce so far is Garnet Rose Romaine from Botanical Interests. I think it's a beautiful color and has a pleasant taste. But really it's all about that color! It looks great in salads with contrasting greens. Research says that darker loose leaf lettuces contain more antioxidants than lighter colored lettuce such as Iceberg. The darker leaves absorb more light and are able to synthesize more vitamins! 

I am growing about 5 different varieties of lettuce and 2 varieties of spinach plus Flowering Sweet Peas and green bunching onions in my 3 raised beds. Each bed is 5' by 10'. That means I have 150 square feet of vegetable space. I'd say 3/4 of it is lettuce! The onions take up half a bed.

Do you grow lettuce? What are your favorite varieties? I'd love to read your comments.

Happy gardening!