Lettuce Red Salad Bowl - Lactuca sativa

Red Salad Bowl Lettuce is an Oak Leaf type with red leaves. It is a tender and crunchy salad vegetable with a delicate, nutty flavour. Sow from February to July for a harvest 6 to 8 weeks later.

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

Lettuce is the quintessential leafy vegetable, an annual plant that belongs 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. Cut and come again lettuces do not form heads and are harvested as needed because they can regrow after each harvest.

Lettuce is easy to grow as long as you respect the growing period for each variety. Its growth is rapid, and it thrives in any soil, provided it is rich and remains moist.

Harvest: Cut with a knife or scissors, taking the leaves from the outer part of the plant, which will continue to grow and produce new leaves.

Storage: Lettuce can be stored for a few days in the refrigerator, but to enjoy its freshness to the fullest, we recommend eating it immediately.

Gardener's Tip: Slugs and snails love lettuce leaves and can become a nightmare for gardeners. When the hunt is on we are ready to do anything to repel or eliminate them: an ash barrier (which will quickly be leached by the rain), a homemade beer trap (which hedgehogs get drunk on), the copper bands that are supposed to electrocute them (which tickle them a little)...

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