The mighty lettuce plant is the king of the spring garden. Going out and picking fresh lettuce will add to any dinner salad. The best part is it is easy to grow.
Lettuce came to us from Asia Minor, and was no doubt a weed. (L Scariola) The leaf style lettuce grew easily, and was hardy in all but the hottest places. Plenty of vitamins were available. There was also good roughage in lettuce.
Now, we enjoy mostly commercially grown varieties of lettuce. That is a shame, because there are so many good heirloom varieties available today. My personal favorites are the mixed lettuce varieties that are sold by the Baker Creek Seed Company in Mansfield, Missouri. You can check out the varieties of lettuce they have at www.rareseeds.com.
Lettuce is planted by just scattering the seed across the top of soil. I generally like to take my fingers and lightly spread the seed into the soil. The seed likes to be planted in fertile well drained soil. You will also need to keep the lettuce
well watered. Lettuce also does well in partly sunny
to sunny locations.
So, get your seed catalog out today, and pick out a variety of heirloom lettuce to plant in your springtime garden. You'll be very glad you did.
Raymond C. Province, M.A.
Celtic Ozark Solutions
No comments:
Post a Comment