Batavia Lettuce Lettony - Lactuca sativa

The Latvian Lettuce is a Batavia-type lettuce that forms a fairly loose head composed of undulate leaves with a very mild taste. It is a very beautiful variety, highly resistant to mildew, rot, and running to seed. Sowing from March to August for a harvest from June to October.

If Lettuce is one of the most popular vegetables (4.2 kilograms per person per year), it is appreciated for its freshness, crunchiness, as well as its taste and nutritional qualities. It can be consumed raw in salads but also cooked, to accompany peas, for example.

As the quintessential leaf vegetable, Lettuce is an annual plant belonging to the large family of Asteraceae. Its Latin name, Lactuca sativa, refers both to the white sap (lactuca) that flows when it is cut and to the fact that it is cultivated (sativa).

It is an essential vegetable in any respectable vegetable garden, and there are so many varieties that it can be grown almost all year round.

Growing Lettuce is easy as long as you follow the cultivation calendar for each variety. Its growth is fast and it thrives in any soil, provided it is rich and remains moist.

Harvest: It is simply done with a knife when the Lettuces are well developed.

Storage: Lettuce can be stored for a few days in the refrigerator, but to enjoy its freshness to the fullest, we recommend consuming it immediately after harvesting. Freezing cooked Lettuce is also possible.

Gardener's tip: A real nightmare for gardeners, slugs and snails love lettuce leaves. When the hunt is on, it must be admitted that we are ready to do anything to repel or eliminate them: a line of ash (which will be quickly leached by rain), a homemade trap filled with beer (which hedgehogs get drunk on until they reach a drunken coma), copper strips that are supposed to electrocute them (which tickle them a little).

Instead of wasting your time and, incidentally, your salads, we recommend using an anti-slug product composed of ferric phosphate known as Ferramol. Unlike slug pellets based on metaldehyde, which are dangerous for wildlife and polluting, Ferramol is natural, non-toxic, and very effective as long as you remember to "treat" your plot a few days before sowing.

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