Lettuce Picholine - Lactuca sativa

The Picholine Lettuce is an amazing lettuce that is very red and produces beautiful dense heads, quite large, composed of thick and glossy leaves of a superb deep red. It is a robust, compact variety, resistant to fungal diseases (mildew, blight) and therefore easy to grow. Harvest from June to October.

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

The ultimate leaf vegetable, Lettuce is an annual plant that belongs to the large Asteraceae family. 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 respect the planting schedule for each variety. It grows rapidly and thrives in any soil, provided it is rich and remains moist.

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

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.

Gardener's tip: During hot summer days, lettuces exposed to full sun tend to shrivel up. To avoid this phenomenon, consider protecting them from the intense rays with overturned crates. In our garden, summer lettuces are not grown in rows but interspersed throughout: at the base of climbing beans, in the middle of cucumbers and squash, whose foliage provides beneficial shade.

Note: Attention, our young plug plants are professional products reserved for experienced gardeners: upon receipt, transplant and store them under cover (veranda, greenhouse, cold frame...) at a temperature above 14C° for a few weeks before being planted outdoors once the risk of frost is definitively avoided.