The Front-Yard Farmer

September, 2007

Growing lettuce in north Florida

NORTHWEST FLORIDA - September is an exciting time for home vegetables gardeners in north Florida. For many of us, it’s the month we get back into the garden and begin sowing and planting our fall gardens.

Being big salad eaters at our house, much of our cool weather front-yard Victory Garden is dedicated to growing several varieties of lettuce. The last couple of years our Victory Garden salad mix has included Sweet Red, Black-seeded Simpson, Ruby and Red Salad Bowl, Green Ice, Paris Cos, Royal Oak Leaf, Santa Fe and Iceberg. Many are leaf lettuce varieties, allowing us to pick a few leaves at a time from each plant over a long period of time.

We extend the season by planting in succession, putting out about a few dozen new plants every three or four weeks. If you grow leaf types, like black-seeded Simpson, you don’t need to plant as often.

I use a cold frame to start lettuce seeds in the real cold weather (it’s simply an old window on a couple of 4x4s). If we get a hard freeze, we lose about everything in the garden, but we simply replant. In this way, we have fresh lettuce from about mid October until late-May.

For a complete list of vegetable planting dates for north Florida and recommended varieties of vegetables for the home garden, see our Vegetable Planting Guide.

Front-Yard Farmer Dennis Gilson grows a great variety of fruits and vegetables at his home in Niceville, Florida

Lettuce growing in containers in Niceville