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Post by oldmobie on Jun 15, 2014 23:45:20 GMT -5
I harvest at this stage...  How big is that/ what's the spacing? As you might imagine, in my square foot bed, crowded together (sown, not "spaced"), with me cutting off the outer leaves, mine's never reached that stage. I may have to put a bed of it in the ground to grow it like that. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 16, 2014 0:15:01 GMT -5
I plant lettuce either seeds or transplants at one foot intervals. So the head in the previous photo would be a foot across. If planting seeds I space small pinches of seed a foot apart and then thin to the best plant soon after they germinate. Here's a photo from my daddy with something to show scale. Definitely larger than would fit comfortably in a square foot gardening scenario.  |
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Post by kazedwards on Jun 16, 2014 0:36:06 GMT -5
That is a beautiful head of lettuce!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 16, 2014 23:53:10 GMT -5
I grow lettuce in the same spot every year, whatever volunteers from the year before... So I have a patch containing Simpson Black Seeded and a patch containing a close relative of Romaine which are separated by about 100 feet. They grow and flower with wild lettuce. Today I scoured the wild lettuce weeds to see if there was anything that looked like it could possibly be a hybrid. In the Simpson Black seeded patch I found a few plants like this:  In the Romaine patch I found a few plants like this:  That's about what I would expect from hybrids: traits mid-way between the two parent types, but I haven't studied enough wild lettuce to know if these are natural variations within the species. Just to make sure that I am not inadvertently growing lettuce that has been so contaminated with wild genes as to become unpalatable I went to my sisters house and tasted a half dozen varieties that she grew from seed company stock. It was nasty bitter and unpalatable to me. |
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Post by jondear on Jun 18, 2014 21:15:58 GMT -5
Well I seeded some in 6 packs. They are up. I can't wait to see if I got some crosses. If not I may get some in this batch.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 21, 2014 2:09:55 GMT -5
And here's Tim's Lettuce gone surfing in California. Yeah they were surfing for a honey, loquat vinegrette.... plus.google.com/photos/107334638896480841204/albums/6027274132901691697?banner=pwaSometimes I cut and let them come back, and sometimes I just cut. Been a tough year for lettuce. I cut these so I could let them make seed. I have them in a row with an F/1 butter lettuce from Turkey that is really superb. Leo was ticked because everytime he wanted to pick one, I said they were for seed. |
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 21, 2014 2:11:15 GMT -5
Joseph, I think wild lettuce is vile, but my chickens love it. Ewwww. It's a pesty weed here too.
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Post by jondear on Jun 21, 2014 20:04:43 GMT -5
Looks like I got a few crosses. There are a few red leaves in my jericho. Maybe 3 of 100 seedlings. I'll update when I know more.
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Post by raymondo on Jun 22, 2014 2:25:20 GMT -5
Looks like I got a few crosses. There are a few red leaves in my jericho. Maybe 3 of 100 seedlings. I'll update when I know more. Fun times ahead in the next generation growout. |
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Post by jondear on Jun 24, 2014 19:03:41 GMT -5
It should be interesting ray.
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Post by littleminnie on Jul 16, 2014 20:00:55 GMT -5
Interesting about the wild lettuce. I have been reading Seed to Seed again and she says some people think they cross and others don't. Much of my volunteer lettuce gets an oak leaf shape and some has really pretty color this year. But I have lots of wild lettuce weed and that oak shape is maybe coming from there.  |
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Post by samyaza on Jul 17, 2014 1:21:46 GMT -5
If by wild lettuce you mean L. serriola, of course it will cross as it's considered our lettuce wild progenitor and is completely cross-fertile. It's already been intensely used as a source of resistance to powdery mildew, especially. Other species are completely or partially cross-fertile but they weren't introducted in the US and don't grow wild where I live.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 31, 2014 13:21:30 GMT -5
Noticed this in one of the plants that I'm saving for seed. The florets seem to be fasciated together into this funny lettuce broccoli. I've never noticed this before, entirely possible it happens all the time. Seemed strange enough to take a nice picture of.  |
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Post by templeton on Aug 1, 2014 3:52:10 GMT -5
Most odd- never seen it before.
T
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Post by philagardener on Aug 1, 2014 6:38:19 GMT -5
Wild, oxbowfarm ! Cockscomb lettuce! Out of curiousity, did the leaves turn bitter (something I associate with bolting) or not, relative to sibs? |
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