Keeping lettuce from going bitter
From Tiny Farm Wiki
Original thread from Tiny Farm Forum: Non-bitter lettuce:
organicsheri
I am having an on-going discussion with small scale organic farmers around MB about how to keep lettuce from going bitter. Any thoughts?
So far: it's a cool season crop and will go bitter. period. water it a lot plunge in icy cold water after harvest to get the core temp down, down, down.
Please join in!
Mike (tfb)
Lettuce does get...stronger tasting in the heat of summer, even this not-so-hot-and-sunny summer. Which is what I tell people at the farmers' market. Curiously, the bitter taste is there when you sample leaves while harvesting, but I never notice it when I'm eating a salad.
Most of the time here, lettuce is rinsed right after harvest in quite cold well water, can't say I've noticed it getting less bitter for that. But I haven't actually paid attention to that specifically.
I've assumed that, if I wanted that kinda store-bought mild lettuce taste through the summer, I'd have to use shade cloth, although I'm not sure if that alone would make a difference.
rabratten
We used shade cloth but it ended up creating a mild greenhouse effect, so the plants got sad and wilty. In the end we used our tapped water-barrel to regularly mist the lettucs...I think it worked, or at least minimized the damage.
We put our lettuce right into the fridge after harvest and it lost much of its bitterness after 12 hours or so.
Anyone know varieties that are less likely to go bitter and bolt?
ryan
In my kitchen garden I plant lettuce under my tomato plants for the shade they provide. "Anuenue" is a very heat resistant variety developed in Hawaii that you can buy from Johnnys (johnnyseeds.com). You can also search the term "heat tolerant lettuce" on their website for more varieties.
rhonda jean
Here in Australia we plant a lettuce called Darwin. It's a hot weather lettuce that is resistant, but not immune, to bolting. Can you get it over there?
Matthias
Because lettuce goes bitter as it ages, and as the summer gets hotter, We succession plant for one row of head lettuce and one bed of mesclun for each week of the season. Our early head lettuce is romaine and then as it warms up we plant "Nevada" (a batavia head lettuce from johnnys, which resists bitterness,) to carry us through the heat, then back to romaine in the fall. We also imerse the lettuce in cold water and refrigerate it prior to market. But the largest single factor in reducing bitterness in our lettuces has come from the use of wood ash on the lettuce rows. The pure wood ash is incorporated in the soil when we till the row prior to seeding. For our soil and our wood ash this system works well. We use about a gallon to 2 gallons of wood ash on a 100 foot row.
bluegreenproject
My lettuce has been getting beautiful weather and lots of water, but has been coming up bitter. I've tried everything from chilling it for 24 hours before serving to picking it in the middle of the night. Picking it at night or early morning helped some, but there was still an unacceptable amount of bitterness.
I just read that lettuce can become bitter because of excess nitrogen in the soil. My initial soil test was already a little high in nitrogen, and I brought in quite a bit of compost to start my vegetable garden. Hopefully that's my problem.
Your technique of incorporating wood ash into the soil should compensate for this by releasing nitrogen as the ash is broken down. It should also benefit the soil structure. Anyone know how long that will take to work? I'm going to try it.
