Three Cheers For Lettuce: A Luminous Legacy
Published 4:00 am, Thursday, June 17, 2004
Lettuce deserves its props. It's what transforms two slices of bread and some ham into a sandwich. It's the fulcrum of a salad: Radishes and tomatoes without lettuce are just that -- radishes and tomatoes. But what should truly cement our love and respect for lettuce is that we can grow it in summer when most other folk can't.
A cool-weather vegetable, lettuce (Lactuca sativa) won't survive the summer heat in most places, yet it thrives year-round in San Francisco's maritime-cooled climate. While the rest of the Northern Hemisphere is wearing tank tops and growing eggplant, we sport our fleece and grow lettuce instead. One of the easiest vegetables to grow, lettuce can reach maturity in just six weeks and grows equally well in containers or in the ground.
As a cultivated crop, lettuce probably originated around the Mediterranean Basin, where it was harvested for the edible oil in its seeds rather than grown for its leaves. According to book "The Compendium of Lettuce Diseases," a fascinating read from the American Phytopathological Society, Egyptian tomb paintings from 4,500 years ago include images of lettuce.
Lettuce appeared on the royal tables of Persia in 550 B.C. Herodotus, Hippocrates and Aristotle all mention lettuce in their writings. And the Romans, who believed Augustus Caesar was cured of a serious disease by eating lettuce, dragged romaine with them wherever they went a-conquering, germinating lettuce fans throughout Europe.
Over in Asia, the ancient Chinese, who considered lettuce a symbol of good luck, were growing it by the fifth century B.C. And here, in North America, lettuce arrived on our shores with Columbus' second expedition. It was first planted in California, the lettuce capital of the United States, by Spanish missionaries in the 18th century. This luminous lettuce heritage now rests with us, so plant your lettuce ASAP.
The most common categories of lettuce are romaine, a head lettuce with deep green, long leaves; crisphead, whose best-known variety is iceberg; butterhead, with its large, loose leaves (Boston and Bibb are its most popular varieties); and leaf lettuce, including green-leaf and red-leaf lettuce, which features broad, curly leaves. All are equally easy to grow in our benign climate. (It's easy to be a great gardener here -- just get out of the way.)
I've recently had great luck with 'Black-Seeded Simpson,' 'Salad Bowl' and 'Red Oakleaf,' all leaf lettuces, and 'Four Seasons,' a butterhead. My Mission District gardening colleague Kristin Crownover, however, swears by 'Little Gem,' a dwarf romaine particularly nice for our summers. It grows in a very tight head that serves as a natural slug barrier -- the vermin can't get beyond the outer layer of leaves, leaving the delicious heart untouched. Crownover also notes that she's not the most disciplined of gardeners, yet 'Little Gem' is consistently tender and delicious despite her less-than-regular watering schedule.
In general, lettuce likes its soil rich, moist and loose. In other words, pile on the compost. Growing lettuce in dense, unamended clay produces a sour piece of shoe leather a rabbit would walk away from. Lettuce can also tolerate a half day of shade -- nice for those of us whose urban yards are regularly shaded by the neighbor's place.
Lettuce is available at nurseries as seedlings, but even the most distracted, forgetful and/or indolent gardeners can grow it from seed. Loads of varieties are available; experiment to see which performs best for you. When I'm emperor of the world, lettuce will be the first vegetable beginning gardeners grow -- you have try hard to fail, it's gorgeous while it's growing and it has a refreshing, healthy flavor that even the pickiest of vegetable eaters enjoys.
Good sources for seed include Cook's Garden (which got its start in lettuces), the Seed Savers Exchange, the Territorial Seed Co., Seeds of Change and Heirloom Seeds. For more detailed growing instructions, check out Pam Peirce's book "Golden Gate Gardening" and this past Green Gardener column or this one.
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Lisa Van Cleef is a feral office worker who escaped into the garden never to return. She now designs gorgeous organic gardens throughout the Bay Area. Check out her Web site at www.lisavancleef.com