I am thoroughly enjoying my lettuce and was wondering if it's too late to plant more? I'm using the square foot garden method, and thought it might work if I could plant the lettuce in with the large tomato plants, thereby giving them more shade than they would be getting in a space on their own,
Any advice would be appreciated.
Too late for new lettuce?
Hi Sequee,
I just started some last week, as part of a regular "sequencing" of lettuce throughout the summer. Some cultivars react differently to the dog days of summer so you might want to consider which variety you are planting (we like "Four Seasons" which is true to the name). Depending on your weather over the next few months and how mature you want the lettuce to be, you should be able to enjoy some well into the fall. We had fresh salads from our garden for Thanksgiving a couple years back (a particularly nice long fall in that case). We tend to harvest the lettuce in the young, almost "baby" stage rather than waiting for the full development of the heads. Lots more flexibility from the seasonal gardening perspective, but it depends on how fully developed you want your lettuce. Good luck; I hope you give it a try. You might want to look at some of Eliot Coleman's stuff on "Four Season Gardening" if you want more ideas (and enthusiasm) about extending the season even up here in the north country.
Hi Sequee
I had some 2003 seeds so thinking the germination rate would be real low I put a Co-op pack, lots of seeds, in a 25 gal tub, along came Mr Cat and scattered the seeds to the next tub and made me think I had lost my mind that one was suppose to have a couple of pepper seeds sprouting, but it was full of lettuce.
I said all that to say, some of the seeds he buried deeply are just not sprouting and the lettuce is standing up well, in the 90's here now, we also cut it young.
Judy
The book I cited was:
Eliot Coleman et.al. 1999. FOUR SEASON HARVEST: ORGANIC VEGETABLES FROM YOUR GARDEN ALL YEAR LONG.
I enjoy reading Coleman although I do not adopt anywhere near all of his tips and techniques. The main thesis of the book is that if you plan ahead, keep replacing "spent" crops with something new (as you are suggesting in your initial post), make full use of your space, and change your menu in the more extreme seasons (lots of greens that do well in cool weather for example for early spring and late fall), and some of his portable greenhouse and other more substantial efforts you can garden "all year round". That's more than I want to do, but he would certainly endorse your idea of planting more lettuce now for the fall with great gusto.
We also do a version of square foot gardening in our raised beds. Isn't it great? People are amazed at the amount of stuff we can grow in our backyard via this method.
Thanks, ya'll! Great info. I went on a hunt, and I actually have some "Marvel of Four Season's" in my seed rack. Life is good!
BTW, I grow lettuce and on my window sills in the Fall and Winter and it does real well. Not quite as productive as outdoors, but nice to grab and munch from time-to-time.
LOL! Just when you think you're done planting...