Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article
ws.net,
Oxymel of Squill wrote:
not so far as I know, it just said lettuce on the packet.
:-)
how can even lettuce be complicated?

Lettuce go back to the beginning ....

Many cultivated plants have been bred into various different forms,
so things that we think are different are just different strains of
the same species. Perhaps the extreme one is Brassica oleracea,
which includes kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, kohl rabi, broccoli
and many other forms. Lettuce is somwhat simpler, but still has
several very different strains.

Yes, but Oxymel has simply let the lettuces' soil dry out a bit too
much. They need to be kept growing in moist soil without a "check",
or they will go stalky -- the next stage would be flowering. No
worries: just sow some more seed tomorrow, and this time don't let
them dry out once they've germinated. Just a few at fortnightly
intervals, if you're that organised: think about how many you'll need
in the average week.

You can eat the leaves off the ones you've got, but they'll probably
taste rather bitter -- not a bad thing, when you consider endive and
radicchio. Oddly, the way to reduce apparent bitterness seems to be
salt rather than sugar; but one shouldn't overdo it, of course:
people ruin food with salt. There are recipes for lettuce soup out
there somewhere, and I imagine these bolted ones, maybe stalks and
all, would be very good for that -- try an Intenet search. Anyhow,
pull 'em out and plant something else.

--
Mike.