info wrote:

i am in Tampa, Florida

last year i started gardening for the first time, i growed lettuce, seeds
were planted April, results were a complete disaster, i had almost 2 feet
lettuce .(cant remeber the scientific term)

this year i tried it in december till now in a very simple greenhouse ,
results r great(not sure why it is not crunchy) , but .....

temperature has been floating above 80's since almost 2 weeks, and some
lettuce(specailly Romaine) started doing the same thing as last year, not 2
feet, but quiet long.


Lettuce likes cool weather. It can take temperatures down to 22F,
although some varieties will get tipburn at those temperatures. Hot
weather makes it bolt, or try to set seed. In the process, the leaves
get a bitter taste, so you want to avoid that.

I have good luck starting lettuce in small cells (1" square, 200 per
flat). When the root ball fills the cell so that the plant comes out
easily I stuff it in the ground at 12" intervals. During cool weather I
start the plants in the greenhouse, but when the temperature is higher I
place the flats outside to germinate and develop. Greenhouse lettuce is
really only practical in the winter. Check the catalog for heat tolerant
varieties (or bolt resistance).

Last summer we had 3 weeks above 90F (unusual for New England) and I
lost a *lot* of lettuce to bolting.

Best germination temperature is around 60F, so in hot weather I put the
newly seeded flats in my basement to germinate (about 3 days). As soon
as you see any signs of sprouting, get those plants into the light.
Sunlight works 1000% better than grow lights.

One way to avoid bolting is to plant a lot of lettuce on close spacing
(maybe 6" intervals) and harvest it small, before it has a chance to
mature. If you do this you will have to seed your lettuce on a regular
basis. I use a one week schedule, but that's probably too much for the
average home garden. Placing one seed per cell is a real chore, so I use
pelleted lettuce seed. It is available in home garden quantities from
some growers (try Johnny's Selected Seeds or Harris) although you don't
always have a full selection of varieties. Depending on how hot it is in
your area, you might have to pick it so small that it takes several
heads for one meal. You can plant several different varieties, harvest
and wash a mix and put it in a bag, where it will last a week in your
refrigerator.

Another trick is to pull the lettuce plant up by the roots, wash off the
soil, and place the whole thing in a plastic bag with a couple of
teaspoons of water and place in the refrigerator. I have had lettuce
keep fresh and crisp this way more than two weeks.

Avoid pulling a leaf or two at a time from the lettuce. That's a receipe
for bolting, since the plant responds to stress by trying to reproduce.
Harvest the whole plant, keep it in the refrigerator, and place a new
plant in the ground. If you have too much lettuce, you can compost it
and use it to grow next year's crop, so it doesn't go to waste. In
extreme oversupply cases you can supply your neighbors with salad.