Batavia Lettuce Sanguine - Vilmorin seeds - Lactuca sativa

The Batavia Blood Lettuce is a cut lettuce that produces beautiful fringed leaves in a vibrant red. It is a superb variety for late spring and autumn, as beautiful as it is tasty. It can be consumed raw or cooked, steamed or braised. Sow from March to April and then from mid-August to September for a harvest from May to June and from October to November.

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

The lettuce is the quintessential leafy vegetable, an annual plant that belongs to the large Asteraceae family. Its Latin name, Lactuca sativa, refers both to the white sap (lactuca) that oozes when 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 respect the planting calendar for each variety. It grows quickly and thrives in any soil, provided it is rich and remains moist.

Harvest: It is simply done with a knife when it reaches ripeness.

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 harvest.

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

Instead of wasting your time and, incidentally, your salads, we recommend using a slug control product composed of ferric phosphate known as Ferramol. Unlike slug control products based on metaldehyde, which are dangerous to 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.