Lettuce Splendor - Lactuca sativa

The Batavia Splendor Lettuce is a fast-growing and disease-resistant variety that produces large, crisp green leaves. Sow from January to August for a harvest from May to November.

Lettuce is one of the most popular vegetables (with an average consumption of 4.2 kilograms per person per year) due to its freshness, crunchiness, and taste. It can be eaten raw in salads or cooked, for example, to accompany peas.

As the ultimate leaf vegetable, Lettuce is an annual plant that belongs to the large Asteraceae family. Its Latin name, Lactuca sativa, refers to both the white sap (lactuca) that flows when it is cut and 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. It grows quickly and thrives in any soil, as long as it is rich and remains moist.

Harvest: It can be simply cut with a knife when it reaches ripeness.

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

Gardener's tip: Slugs and snails are the nightmare of gardeners as they love lettuce leaves. When the hunt is on, we are willing to do anything to repel or eliminate them: ash lines (which will be quickly washed away by rain), homemade traps filled with beer (which intoxicate hedgehogs to the point of drunkenness), copper bands that are supposed to electrocute them (which only tickle them)...

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