Lettuce
Lactuca sativa
S
ince lettuce is a native of the Mediterra
nean area, it is not unreasonable that the
emperor Augustus constructed a statue of a
physician who had recommended lettuce to
treat him of a serious ailment. There’s no re
cord of the kind of lettuce that cured Augustus,
but according to some sources, it may have
been what’s known as prickly lettuce, which
doesn’t play a role in our kitchen garden.
Other than varieties that bring ailing emper
ors back to robust health, lettuce can be de
scribed in four basic styles, plus one miniature
or baby:
Iceberg (crisphead): dense, crisp head; white
to pale green; rotund
Romaine (cos): tall and crisp; mostly deeper,
dark green tops
Butterhead (Bibb): very tender, somewhat
juicy broad leaves, with a smooth, even
texture
Leaf: open head, separate leaves of mixed
colors
Mesclun (spring mix): loose leaf varieties,
with sparse more multipronged leaves;
colors range from red to speckled, and
tastes from mild to peppery
Greenhouse operators, no doubt inspired by
Eliot Coleman’s amazing work at the Four Sea
sons Farm in Harborside, Maine, have almost
flooded the market with their spring mix of
lettuce that can be grown year round. Th is has
transformed lettuce into a mixture of leaves
that can stand alone without being smothered
with a lava flow of bottled dressings!
The soil temperature to remember is 75ºF,
but this time it’s an upper limit because most
lettuce seed will not germinate when it’s too
warm. Remarkably, it will germinate as low as
38ºF, so it follows that you can sow in early
spring. I like the idea of a bed of mesclun mix
that includes arugula, Bull’s Blood beet greens,
winter red, kale, Pink Petiole, mixed mustard
greens, Cherry Belle radish, and salad burnett.
(Territorial Seeds do such a mix; the catalog
number at this writing is MS480.) A four-grain
packet will densely cover a 16-square-foot area.
Be sure to cut it while young and always
2 inches above the soil; then it should grow
back for a second crop.
The Numbers
For each 100 g romaine (3.5 oz ; 1 cup packed ): 24
calories, 0.5 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 4 g carbohydrate,
1 g protein, 1 g dietary fiber, 0 mg sodium
176 • GROWING AT THE SPEED OF LIFE
