No bitter lettuce here
Romaine lettuce fresh from the garden in mid June. It takes very few plants to get a meals worth of these bush green beans. Photo by PBH
Harris Seed sent 5 seed packets of my choice for trial. I’ve never grown their product, so I thought I would give it a trial. There will be a full report on all 5 varieties at the end of the season.
But these two vegetables are doing exceedingly well. I just couldn’t wait to tell you because you still have time to get in a crop of beans and a fall batch of this Romaine lettuce. Leaf lettuce is my favorite, but if a Romaine can change my mind, Kruger may be the one.
All other lettuce is gone for the season. As we jump into full fledged summer, my juicy leaf lettuces have gone on to bolt, bloom and produce seed. The only lettuce still growing bitter-free is the Kruger.
Get this: Kruger has just started to bolt – a week or 2 later that all the other lettuce. It is not bitter. I sat there like a rabbit in the garden, taste testing a leaf from a few different bunches of this cos lettuce.
Kruger Romaine is beautifully formed and nearly every leaf is edible. It stands tall but tender. There has been a minimum of insect problems and no disease.
The Lewis green beans are beautiful and the plants are loaded. Keep them well picked for the slender haricots verts to appear bountifully. If you do not frequently pick beans, they will grow bigger and thinker. (and tougher)
Plant a few beans every two weeks for a steady supply of green beans this summer. photo: PBH
From the catalog:
Lettuce – Kruger MTO SKU: 11196-00-02
75 Days. Kruger Romaine lettuce is an improved Parris Island Cos type that offers growers’ resistance to Corky Rot. The heavy, tall, upright heads of Kruger produce crisp green outer leaves that are slightly puckered. The hearts are creamy yellow and have a very tender and sweet flavor. When harvesting Kruger lettuce, there is very little waste, which leads to more useable product and higher returns per acre.
Bean – Lewis SKU: 11016-00-01
53 Days. Lewis green bean produces early, big yields of 3-4 sieve beans, on upright plants that offer a high pod placement for easy mechanical or hand harvest. The attractive medium-dark green, round beans are 5.5″ in length, straight, smooth and have slow seed development. Lewis green beans have an excellent eating quality and an excellent disease package that includes resistance to BCMV-1 (US 1), Beet Curly Top Virus, Halo Blight and Rust along with intermediate resistance to Bacterial Brown Spot. Patent Pending.
Kale Dwarf Blue Curled heirloom Seeds Brassica oleracea
This beautiful almost blue and very frilly kale is from Botanical Interests. We’ve been picking as needed, but with the launch of summer, I harvested it all today. The smaller leaves will be part of a fresh spinach salad. The biggest leaves will be chopped, blanched, frozen. Sometime later it will be used in a pasta and sausage dish, qiiche or, potato soup recipe.
I have more seed in the packet. It will be sown in late summer for a fall crop. The kale that gets a touched by frost is sweeter. The ideal method of growing kale is to plant an early spring crop, use the garden space for a summer crop, like bush beans, and sow kale again in August or September.
- Lewis green bean and Kruger Romaine lettuce from Harris Seed
- Kale Dwarf Blue Curled heirloom seeds from Botanical Interests
Todays Harvest Basket 6/24/2013. photo: PBH
