Lettuce for lots of salads!

Dear Gardeners,
A quick tip about a lovely lettuce that Jim has discovered!

Matina is a butterhead lettuce (like Boston lettuce) that has a small, compact head, and, wait for it....withstands amazing amounts of doofus beginner-gardener abuse!

Ahem...ahem... But it's true. Last year I accidentally, and very slightly, abused some delightful Matina lettuces (okay they fell over in their six-pack and looked dreadful!), and the tiny darlings not only survived, my gosh, they flourished. Jim swears by it for endurance and delish-factor, and says it has these great properties:

- slow to bolt (or doesn't even try to bolt, which is amazing in the heat)

- can stay way too long in a small pot or seed tray and still go on to grow later, even if others would be rootbound by then, even after wilting and falling over etc., Matina holds on and survives almost all human error.

- tastes amazingly sweet and one head makes a perfect salad for two people.

- lasts and lasts and lasts into the summer - not injured by re-transplanting

- can be sown, like all lettuces, RIGHT NOW, on your windowsill, in a yogurt container with holes punched in the bottom, nested inside another yogurt container, and can then sit on a sunny windowsill in small transplant pots or cell packs quite a long time before being put out in the garden.


And yes, now's the time to start seeding a few lettuce a week. We are 8 weeks before last frost, and these tiny dudes like 40 to 70 degrees!

In the book "Square Foot Gardening", the author shows you how to time the harvest of your daily lettuce by only planting a few seeds at a time in vermiculite, and watering from below. It's quite easy. The tiny sprouts lift out easily by the leaves with the aid of a small stick or pencil to lift the roots into their next sized pot.


When it's warmer outdoors (and less torrential), we move them on to bigger pots, or put them in your lettuce beds outdoors. In planting out lettuce you should save space for successive sowings so there are always several heads ready to eat every week.

But with all the leaf lettuce types that we lettuce lovers like to mix and match, and it is awfully nice to try a huge variety, after one or two summers, we're really loving the Matina if you want a whole head at one meal. For other leaf varieties you can pick the outside leaves for your salad, and leave the leaf lettuce to grow on for up to three months.
One company of the two that sells it says of Matina:

Matina Sweet Butterhead Lettuce: 50-70 days
Matina Sweet is an adorable little butterhead that likes to stay home. It is tender and succulent and is never for sale anywhere since it does not travel well. Matina Sweet’s delicate leaves gently embrace a densely-folded, blanched creamy heart with a luscious, buttery flavor. It is slow to bolt and heat-tolerant. Need we say more?

And if you're new to planting lettuce for salads, here's a great U.K. video that covers the basics in a very friendly way.

Hope you enjoy discovering this tiny excellent butterhead of a lettuce. And do comment and let us know if you decide to order some seeds and what you think of it.

Jen