Page 18 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2024

Growing lettuce as a catch crop
If you don’t know where you stand. You’re not alone.
Every week there is always a demand for greens, the lettuce from the garden is the King of Salads, and the best reward for your work. When planted in the late winter and early spring they accompany the dishes of salads easily prepared during the summer months.
It will not be long before you are looking forward to the return of the spring weather and preparing to start appreciating your vegetable garden once again. Do you remember the many days of sunshine
last year, when the spring flowers were blooming at the edge of the lawn and summer blossom buds began to look as if they were ready to gaze above the already established foliage?
Well then! I am now going to disturb your imagination and pleasant thoughts by jogging your memory of all the hard and laborious work involved with planting and cutting this year!
Which Cultivars of Lettuce should you choose?
Because of their popularity and the commercial expansion of growing under glass, there are too many specialized cultivars to discuss in detail and have no claim to a place in this article.
For practical purposes they can be grouped into two classes: -Cos Lettuce and Cabbage Lettuce, although the leaf lettuce like Lollo Rossa are now very popular and are very useful for cut and come again crops.
You may already be well acquainted with “LittleGem”. ItisoneoftheCosgroupand has always been my favourite to get the season off to an early start for the joy of the family. When the leaves have been secured round the top a week before cutting, the upright growth of their foliage encloses a
blanched interior complete with crisp and tasty leaves.
At best Cabbage types are the most tender and more delicately flavoured. These modern cultivars have been bred to be hardier, stand longer and bear any drought tolerably well.
Catalogues can be a mystery
For good reason the benefits of the cultivars, “All the Year Round” and “Webb’s Wonderful” are still widely held and
no doubt come to your thoughts and memories from the dim and distant past. If you are still uncertain about your selection, thenbuyapacketof“MixedSeed”.When you sow three or four different varieties
in January and keep them going with a little heat they will be ready to mature at different times avoiding any oversupply of production.
Begin at the beginning
When thorough preparation and thoughtful supervision are required by the plants which need to be grown in a reasonably rich, light garden soil that has been trenched with green manure during the winter. After the frosts, a good ‘going- over’ with a fork will break-up the soil and
Lettuce Red Cos & Frillice
working in a handful of fertilizer down the middle of the rows will make an agreeable seedbed and reduce any waste when producing a respectable crop.
With plenty of water, premium plants will grow, stand well and avoid any bolting when kept free from distress during a dry summer. Regular hoeing is necessary as is overhead watering and remember that slugs like both lettuce and seedlings as much as lettuce does not like frost and drought!
Establishment and cultivation
Established in the spring when bluebells are in the woods, summer lettuce can look after themselves when planted either at the end of a row or used to fill-in any gaps.
With rough treatment at planting time or a lack of moistness during the summer, plants will start rising in the centre as they get ready to go to seed just when they ought to be specimens of prime lettuce for the tabletop.
Create a standard area as a seedbed and mark it with six-inch spacing, where lettuce plants can be raised by locating a few
Lettuce Cocarde
A plan for production lettuce all the year round with hardy and mildew resistant cultivars
Sowing time
Management
Harvest period
October
Sow in seed boxes. Prick out into boxes, modules or small peat pots. Plant out in green houses or polytunnels
Feb-March
February & March
Prepare a second crop. Sow under glass ready to plant out from small peat pots or a cold frame
April - May
April to July
Sow outdoors in a prepared seedbed, successional sowings will give crops through to late October
May – October
August & September
Sow in boxes and prick out into modules or peat pots. Always protect from frost. Plant new seedlings in a cold frame or in a warm border under a cloche
Winter months
Lettuce ‘Lollo Rossa’ & Nemesia ‘Seventh Heaven’
18 Simply Vegetables
RON NUTALL