Category Archives: Garden Advice

Choose the Right Lettuce Type for Your Garden

June 6, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Lettuce is excellent for beginner gardens, seed savers, and succession planting. Even if you didn’t have a great spring lettuce crop, you can sow another for fall. If you’ve been browsing lettuce on the catalog or website, you may have noticed that there are an almost overwhelming number of varieties divided into a few different categories. Below we’ll cover the different types of lettuce and how to select the best one for your garden.

Lettuce Types

Romaine (Cos) Lettuce

Even if you’re new to gardening, you’re probably familiar with romaine lettuce from your local grocery store. It produces upright, elongated tall heads with thick succulent ribs and distinctively flavored long, thick crinkled leaves. In most stores, you’ll see green Romaine, but you’ll find seeds in other colors, like the red heirloom Rouge d’Hiver (Red Winter) Romaine Lettuce or the deeply blotched Mayan Jaguar Romaine.

Romaine is the most nutritious type of lettuce you can grow. It does best in loose, fertile soil and is moderately tolerant of heat and shade. Some varieties, like Jericho, an Israeli variety bred for the desert heat, are a favorite among market growers for their heat and to-burn resistance.

Loose-Leaf Lettuce

You may have also spotted loose-leaf in stores, probably in baby lettuce mixes. As the name suggests, it’s a non-heading type of lettuce. Like Romaine, there’s so much more than you’ll find in store. Loose-leaf lettuce contains the largest diversity of attractive heirlooms.

Loose-leaf is second to Romaine in nutritional value. It’s great for home gardeners because it does well as a cut-and-come-again type and allows you to harvest only as much as you need at once. However, it doesn’t keep in the fridge as well as Romaine. Loose-leaf is also the most forgiving of poor soil and is generally more heat-tolerant than other types.

Bibb (Butterhead) Lettuce

Bibb or butterhead lettuce has small, loose green heads, blanched yellow interiors, and thin, soft-textured leaves. It has a wonderfully almost-buttery, sweet taste. The small heads are a great size for single people and smaller families.

Bibb has intermediate nutritional value. It’s generally more tolerant of hot weather than crisphead lettuce. As a group, it is best for cooler regions, with some notable exceptions.

*There’s also Buttercos lettuce which has the characteristics of both butterhead and cos.

Crisphead & Batavian Lettuce

You’re undoubtedly familiar with one common type of crisphead lettuce you’ll find at nearly any grocery store, Iceberg. Like Iceberg, other crisphead lettuce varieties are popular for their tightly folded, blanched crisp leaves.

Crisphead is less nutritious than other varieties. Because it is harder to grow to perfection, we offer varieties that are more adapted for hot regions. Crisphead lettuce should be set out early in the season since it requires a long cool season. Shading with cheesecloth or screening is recommended if heads have not formed by late spring.

Common Questions About Growing Lettuce

How Do You Keep Lettuce Going in Summer?

While some varieties are more heat tolerant than others, lettuce is a cool-season crop. You can extend your season into hotter weather in a couple of ways. The first is to cover your plantings with a reemay blanket.

The other is to plant tall vegetables in north-south rows and plant heat-resistant lettuce underneath the leaf canopy so that it is shaded during the hottest portion of the day. Corn planted in rows 4 feet apart or pole beans on a fence or trellis is ideal. Interplanting lettuce with bush squash also gives good results. Mulch the lettuce well, keep it well watered, and enjoy!

How to Start Lettuce in Hot Weather?

If the temperature exceeds 80 degrees F, lettuce will often fail to germinate. You can plant lettuce during late summer or early fall while the days are still hot, provided the seeds are germinated in the refrigerator for 4-6 days. Another method is to soak the seed in 10% bleach for 2 hours at 40-60 degrees F, followed by four water rinses. This method enhances both the speed and amount of germination.

One more method is to keep the soil cool with burlap or boards; remove cover promptly after germination to keep grasshoppers and other pests from enjoying the shaded tender sprouts!

What’s the Best Type for Beginners?

Generally, we recommend loose-leaf types for beginners as they tend to be the most forgiving of various conditions, including heat and poor soil. They also grow quickly, helping you get harvests faster and more frequently. You could also try Romaine lettuce if you have good, loose, fertile soil.

What’s the Best Type for Greenhouses?

We recommend using heat-tolerant varieties of heat-tolerant, loose-leaf, or Bibb types for greenhouses.

How Do I Save Seed From My Lettuce?

To save seed, you should isolate varieties by a minimum of 12’ for home use. For pure seed isolate varieties a minimum of 25-50’.

Lettuce will eventually bolt, especially in hot weather, sending up a tall flower stem. The flowers look a bit like mini, yellow dandelions. The flowers will eventually become fluffy and dry, and it will be time to harvest seed.

Gently bend the flower stem into a paper bag or container and give it a good shake. Any mature seeds should drop into the bag. You may need to try this for several days as the seeds slowly mature.

After collecting your seeds, you can winnow out the chaff or unwanted plant material. You can use a fan, and a couple of dishes, pouring the seed from one dish to the other as the wind blows the lighter, unwanted material away. Avoid getting too close to the fan, as lettuce seed is quite light.

There’s a lot more to lettuce than you’ll find on the grocery store shelves. Romaine, loose-leaf, Bibb, and crisphead lettuce types all have their pros and cons. Find a tasty, beautiful heirloom variety that fits well in your garden!

Garden Advice

Basics: Annuals, Biennials, Perennials

May 30, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

There are many different groups we divide plants into, and when we’re new to gardening, these can get a bit confusing, especially when there is overlap. There are hybrids and open-pollinated varieties, herbaceous plants and shrubs, brassicas and nightshades, and culinary and medicinal herbs, to name just a few. One helpful distinction for gardeners and seed savers is annuals, biennials, and perennials. Today’s blog will cover these types of plants and what it means for your garden and seed-saving practice.

What’s the Difference Between Annuals, Biennials, and Perennials?

These three labels all refer to a plant’s life cycle. They help us determine how long the plant will live, when it blooms, and when it will produce seeds.

Oregon Giant Dwarf Snow Pea (annual crop)

Annuals

As the name annual suggests, these plants complete their entire life cycle in just a single year. Many familiar garden crops are annuals, including vegetables like cucumbers, summer squash, corn, and beans; herbs like basil, dill, and cilantro; and flowers like sunflowers, zinnias, and cosmos.

Their life begins in spring with a seed that grows into a plant, flowers, and produces seed all before winter sets in. Some of these annuals may self-seed, meaning the seed they drop may come up the following season without replanting, but they do not truly overwinter.

Tomatoes are an excellent example of a crop we grow as annuals but are actually perennials. In their native range in South America and other tropical regions, tomatoes can be grown as a perennial.

Saving seed from annuals is easy and is what we recommend to beginning seed savers because you’ll get seed the first season.

Carrot Flower Forming in the Second Year (biennial crop)

Biennials

Biennials are similar to annuals because they have a specific, fairly limited life cycle. In their case, they complete their life cycle in two years. You’ve probably grown biennial plants without realizing it. Many root crops like onions, carrots, and beets are biennial as are cabbages, collards, and chard. There are also biennial flowers like hollyhocks, foxglove, and Sweet William and a few herbs like parsley.

Biennials begin their life as a seed and grow into a plant that overwinters. Some biennial plants die back a bit in the winter, while others remain evergreen. Many biennial crops require extra protection to survive the winter in our climate and other cooler climates. The following year they resume their growth when the temperatures warm. Then they flower and produce seeds.

Except for flowers, the biennial life cycle is generally ignored by all but seed savers. Most vegetable and herb biennials are best when you harvest them in their first year. Let a carrot or beet stay in the ground all winter, and it will be tough and woody in the spring as the plant takes store nutrients from the roots to produce flowers and seeds. Cabbages don’t form their characteristic heads the following year; instead, they reach for the sky with tall flower stems. To save seeds from biennial crops, you must be prepared to overwinter them.

Perennials

Perennials are simply plants that live longer than one or two years. In gardening, the word perennial is also often used to describe herbaceous perennials like rhubarb, asparagus, salad burnet, and daffodils. However, the term perennial also applies to woody shrubs and trees you may add to your garden, like roses, apple trees, and blueberry bushes.

Some perennials may begin flowering and producing fruit and seed in their first year of life. Others, like apple trees, may need to grow for several years before flowering.

While they’re generally a more significant investment of time and money, perennials continue to give year after year. Often, folks will use perennial plantings as the backbone of flower gardens, adding just a few annuals around them each season.

Sometimes we save seeds from perennial crops like rhubarb and asparagus, but many perennials are often propagated from root divisions or cuttings.

As we become better informed about the plants we’re growing, we can make better choices for our gardens. Knowing the difference between annuals, biennials, and perennials can help you create a flower garden that always has something blooming or save seeds from your favorite vegetables and herbs.

Garden Advice

When to Plant a Fall Garden

May 23, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Growing a fall garden allows us to extend our season and get more vegetables, herbs, and flowers out of our space. In Virginia, where we’re located and farther south, it gives us a second opportunity to enjoy some cool-weather-loving crops like peas and spinach for a second time. However, as we’ll discuss below, the name fall gardening can be a bit misleading, you will be harvesting in the fall, but for many crops, you’ll be sowing during the summer.

When Do I Start My Fall Garden?

The short answer is it depends. Where you’re located and what you choose to grow will dictate the sowing times for your garden. The first step is to consider you’re hardiness zone and determine your first frost date. Then look at the days to maturity for crops you’re considering planting.

While frost may seem like the primary factor in a fall garden, you must also consider the day length. During the fall, the days rapidly get shorter, and this, rather than cold temperatures, slows crop growth.

To take this into consideration, you want to add 14 days to the days to maturity time for any variety you’ll direct sow and 14 to 28 days for any variety you will be transplanting. This longer period helps account for setback and transplant shock.

Once you have your days to maturity plus the added days for daylight, you can count backward from your first frost date to determine your last possible start date.

For example, let’s say we wanted to plant Capitan Bibb lettuce (62 days to maturity) in a zone 6b garden with an estimated first frost of October 20th. We’ll take 62 days and add 14 days because we’ll be direct sowing it, to get a total of 76 days. If we look at a calendar and count backward 76 days from October 20th, we get August 7th. Therefore we can sow Capitan Bibb lettuce up to August 7th in this garden and expect harvests.

At 62 days, Capitan Bibb is also a rather quick-maturing crop. If you want a fall garden, it’s best to start planning early! In zone 7a, we begin direct sowing slower maturing crops like cauliflower as early as June 1st.

Garden Apps and Calendars

These days, gardening apps can be very helpful for determining planting dates. Our own garden planner features planting dates based on your zip code. The Farmer’s Almanac also has a planting date calculator and a first frost date calculator on its website.

If you’d like a more analog option and are located in zone 7, like we are, feel free to check out our planting list pdf. Also, many states and extension agencies offer planting calendars, so be sure to check your local resources as well.

What Should I Plant?

You can include a wide array of crops in your fall garden, with the exception of some long-season crops like field pumpkins.

We often lean towards cool-season crops like brassicas, peas, greens, and root vegetables when planning fall gardens. While these may last us longer into fall than their warm-weather counterparts, we can still include them in our plans as well. Especially in southern areas, you can start later plantings of squash, beans, sweet corn, and even tomatoes to ensure second harvests at the beginning of fall.

In the past, we’ve often set out some tomatoes in the second half of June to ensure we had good production for fall tomato tastings. Here are a few of the crops you can consider planting for fall:

Cauliflower
Cabbages
Summer Squash
Beets
Beans
Peas
Southern Peas
Chinese Cabbage
Swiss Chard
Collards
Corn
Carrots
Lettuce
Parsnips
Rutabaga
Broccoli

Planting in the Fall

There are also a few crops that you can plant in the fall to harvest next season. Some, like bulb onions, brassicas, greens, and certain flowers, we overwinter when they’re still small to get an early spring harvest. Others, like garlic and perennial onions, need a cold period to produce well.

Planning these out ahead of time can help ensure you get a good selection when ordering. For example, we’re already taking garlic orders, even though we’ll ship it out at the appropriate time during the fall based on your location.

If you’re always sad to see the garden season come to an end, consider adding more fall crops to your garden this season. Start planning your fall garden now to ensure all your crops are in on time and you have abundant harvests!

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange