Genus: Lactuca
Species: sativa
Family: Compositae
Lettuce is a versatile salad crop as you can eat it at varying stages of growth. It has so many varieties; one can have mild to spicy flavors & pale green to burgundy in color.
In the Landscape
Lettuce makes a beautiful edging plant for the ornamental garden if planted close together.
In the Kitchen
The main ingredient in any salad mix, it’s easy to make a salad out of “what’s growing” at the time as long as you have some lettuce growing too.
Growing Organic Lettuce
Being a cool season crop makes lettuce an easy crop for organic growing because most of bugs and diseases are not fully active yet in the season. Being a high nitrogen feeder, lettuce is greatly benefited by additions of lots of compost.