Lettuce - Gourmet Mix

Planting Instructions:

Organic Gourmet Mixture lettuce seeds are a cool hardy favorite performing just as vigorously when sown direct as when transplanted. For earliest starts, begin lettuce seeds indoors 4-6 weeks before final frost.

Lettuce will take 65 - 70 days to mature and will germinate in 7 - 10 days. Plant seeds 1/4” deep and approximately 2” apart in rich well-drained soil in full sun to partial shade. 

Care:

Make sure to allow plenty of space between seeds for the lettuce to grow. Overcrowding can cause lettuce to have a bitter taste. While growing, keep the soil well watered and thin back to 1 plant every 4” in the garden. Harvest large outer leaves while allowing smaller leaves to continue to mature.

Approx 425 Seeds

History:

Wow! This Story! Lettuce Entertain You!

The myriad of lettuce choices available today all originated from a wild lettuce that was recorded approximately 5,000 years ago!

Common Lettuce has its origins in the Middle East. Egyptian murals had depictions of lettuce that stood upright with separate leaves rather than heads of lettuce as many varieties have today.

From Egypt to the Greeks… lettuce gets around! The greens used lettuce medicinally as a sedative and served it before a meal to help with digestion and they continued cultivating it for better taste.  

From the Greeks to the Romans who further developed it and by 77 A.D. the Romans had numerous cultivars. A bitter lettuce was mentioned by Pliny the Elder and it’s suspected that he was referring to chicory. The Romans served it with vinegar and oil.

Lettuce Go Further Afield!

From the Romans into Western Europe and all the way to China, Lettuce stashed itself in other places along the way, including Britain, Asia, and Africa. They say that Christopher Columbus may have brought the seeds to the America’s in his 1494 voyage subsequent settlers may have brought lettuce seeds with them as well. In 2015 the astronauts on the International Space Station grew and ate red romaine lettuce. They actually had an entire room where they grew food!

Why The Antelope?

Pronghorn Antelope eat wild lettuce! It’s part of their natural food source. They’re herbivores and like to eat native and non-native plants including wild lettuce. They like the younger plants, but are one of the few species of animals that will eat the prickly leaves of older lettuce plants. 

But watch out, if you have antelope near your garden they’ve been known to hop the fence and eat the lettuce you have planted… along with just about everything else!