Lettuce Butterhead Speckles Organic Seed
Lactuca - sativa
$2.39

Speckles lettuce is a 5"-6" heirloom Butterhead variety that originated with the Mennonites who brought it with them from Germany and Holland over 200 years ago. The slightly crumpled light green leaves are uniquely colored with red speckles and have a mild pleasant taste. The thick, but soft leaves have a tender texture and can be added to any salad for exciting visual interest. The compact heads can be grown in containers. (Butterhead type lettuce is rarely bitter, quick maturing, and they are also known as Boston or Bibb lettuce.) This packet plants: Three 7-foot rows or four successive plantings of 5-foot rows. When to plant outside: Early spring, 3 to 4 weeks before the average last frost, and successive plantings thereafter every 3 weeks until 2 weeks before the first fall frost. In USDA zone 8 or warmer, it can also be sown in fall for winter harvest. When to start inside: 6 weeks before last spring frost and in summer when soil temperatures are too warm outside to germinate lettuce seed. Special Sowing & Germination Instructions: when thinning lettuce, use the thinnings in salads. It can be planted in rows, but group plantings take up less space and are attractive. Double or triple rows also work. If direct seeding outside in late summer for a fall crop, remember that lettuce seed does not come up well in heat. Cover the seeded area with 2 x 6 boards to keep the soil cool for a few days until seed comes up. For early spring planting, cover soil with clear plastic to warm the soil to 70 degrees (the optimum temperature for lettuce). When seedlings appear, immediately take off the plastic.