DANIEL BOCK - MIAMI HERALD
Lettuce mixes, available as seedlings at garden centers, can grow in a garden or a container in our mild winters.
I was at a friend's house for dinner the other day, and my hostess pointed out with pride that the lettuce for our delicious salad came from her garden. Tender and tasty, this lettuce is one more example of how good it is to garden in the Piedmont Carolinas.
While we must give a mild January and an even milder December some credit for this delightful event, leaf lettuce is a crop that home gardeners can count on producing and picking well into winters that are cool rather than cold. Even in a cold winter - remember last year? - some gardeners keep their lettuce going with a protective cover during the coldest nights.
Gardeners enjoying home-grown leaf lettuce either sowed seeds or set out young seedlings last fall, just as the weather was turning. Now is the time to get going on a spring crop. Garden centers have nice selections of seedlings of such favorites as black-seeded Simpson, butter crunch and popular mixes.
These plants can go into a corner of your vegetable bed or perhaps a strip of unused ground by the house. I like to grow leaf lettuce in pots, say 8 to 12 inches in diameter. That way, I can keep the lettuce close to the kitchen door and away from the rabbits
Rabbits are so pervasive that if you set out young plants in your garden, consider sprinkling an animal repellent such as Dog and Rabbit Chaser in bands around the young plants. A second pest is slugs, so keep watch for the distinctive shiny trail and chewed leaves that signal their presence. And they didn't go to Florida for the winter; slugs are out there.
Leaf lettuce is also easy to grow from seeds sprinkled on prepared soil in your garden on in pots containing good potting soil.
A light dose of garden fertilizer will encourage rapid growth as will regular watering by hose or rainfall that keeps the soil moist but not soggy.
One of the nicest things about leaf lettuce is that you can start cutting it quite early with scissors. As a leafy green, it will keep growing through the weeks and months ahead. It just requires cool temperatures, sunshine and protection from rabbits and slugs. The heat of early summer, which can be quite intense, tends to lead to a decline in taste and appearance. But tomatoes will be coming along by then, so you probably won't care.
