David Hare-Scott wrote
Rod Speed wrote

I dont know that much about growing veg, first time this spring/summer.

The first couple of batches of lettuce did fine, First batch was mignonettes, planted from seedlings from bunnings,
transplanted early sep, took a bit of time to start but then did fine. Second batch was cos, planted mid oct from
seedlings from bunnings again.

They both went to seed after a very hot spell in mid Nov, got quite a few leaves to eat until then.

I've since planted some more icebers, 'salad mix', cos, and lollo rossa, mostly from seedings from bunnings, but the
salad mix from someone flogging them at the sunday market.

None of them have done much except the icebergs.
They havent died, just havent done much growth wise.

The icebergs did grow noticeably, up to bit bigger than a large
grapefruit size, but no hearts. Since the first two batches had gone to seed I did start using leaves off the small
icebergs. Now even the icebergs seen to have stopped.

We have had much hotter weather obviously, in fact a couple of patches of a week or so over 40C, with some rather
cooler times in between.

They get plenty of water, once a day from one of those
soaker hoses that sort of weep water rather than spray it.

Is it just that they dont like the very hot weather ?

Yes. I give up on lettuce in summer. Despite being seen as a summer salad vege, in a hot climate they grow best in
autumn and spring and will do OK in winter, most will stand a light frost.

The net seems to suggest that thats the problem.

Are there any varietys that do much better in the very hot weather ?

If you find out let me know. I have tried some lablelled "slow bolting" but they didn't seem any better.

Just been down the nursery, and the woman said that she just planted
a punnet of Vegie Patch's Lettuce Combo last week and was already
eating leaves off it this week. The label doesnt say exactly what the
variety is, part of the mix looks like a red leafed cos and the rest
has more wrinkly leaves and is light green. She did sort of imply
that it was only one of the varietys that was so spectacular, so
I will plant the punnet this evening and see how it goes.