Growing Lettuce in the Winter

Lettuce.  Crisp, healthy, beautiful lettuce.  I plant 6 different varieties of lettuce in our garden:

• lollo rossa
• black seeded simpson
• oak leaf
• red romaine
• rocky top mix
• red wing lettuce mix

While there is nothing wrong with iceberg lettuce, I've never tried to grow it.  I've always had good success with growing 'leaf' type lettuce.  We always enjoy a nice salad, especially with homemade salad dressing.  We like to experiment with pureeing different herbs and olive oil and vinegar - adding lemon juice, satsuma juice to give the dressing a little 'zing.'  I generally plant lettuce in the fall as I found that lettuce just doesn't hold up well in the heat that is so prevalent in our southern climate. 

This year I mixed things up a little bit and planted a patch of lettuce alongside the radish patch in our raised bed that is in the side yard.  I planted the rocky top mix and the red wing lettuce mix in the raised bed and the other varieties in the big garden.  I wanted to experiment with the looser soils that are in the raised bed.  I have found that I don't always get good germination in the heavier soils in the big garden.  As it turns out, the experiment played out well and I almost achieved 100% germination in the raised bed.  I probably got about 25% germination in the big garden.

We have eaten a bunch of salad already and we'll have plenty of salad to give away to family and friends.  If you just pick the leaves, the plant will keep producing and you'll have an almost infinite amount to eat and give away.

There is only one problem.  Planting in the fall protects you from heat-related stress on the plants, but puts you at severe risk of losing the plants to freeze.  Lettuce does best when temps are between 45 and 65.  Romaine and butter lettuce is the most frost resistant, and I have lots of that planted.  You can see the red romaine below.  However, as I look at the extended forecast, I see that beginning this Sunday, temps will dip to 31, followed by 24 on Monday, 22 on Tuesday and 19 on Wednesday!

I will do my best to cover the lettuce with a tarp and I may even try to run a heat lamp out there to protect it, but I fear our beautiful lettuce crop may come to an end.  While they can survive a light frost, extended freezing conditions are not friendly to lettuce.  For insurance, on Saturday, I may try to pick a bunch of it and put it in our fridge, wrapped in wet paper towels so that we can enjoy salads during the abnormal (for us) frigid conditions.  Bundle up everyone!