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Winter Lettuces3 Products
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Mixed Lettuces2 Products
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Butterhead Lettuces1 Product
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Oakleaf Lettuces3 Products
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Cos or Romaine Type Lettuces6 Products
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Crisphead Lettuces6 Products
Lettuce Seed
New colours and textures to add to your salads, but of course with bolt-resistance and good flavour as well.
We have some really great lettuce here. But check the rest of the catalogue for other easy salad plants like:
• Endive – useful when the lettuce hasn’t started yet
• Mizuna and other Oriental Greens are really quick and easy
• Land Cress makes an interesting all year round addition to your salads.
• Salsola Soda is very nice raw in salads
Anyways, on to the lettuces! We’ve listed them by the types of head they make.
Sowing Information
Lettuce seed won't germinate well in high temperatures, so later sowings should be outdoors either in trays or direct. Sow little & often, to keep a good supply through the season, and not be overwhelmed. If you end up with too many, make lettuce soup!
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Winter Lettuce Seed
What’s this you ask? Winter lettuce are simply very-cold-hardy strains, selected for sowing after mid-summer, for harvest in autumn – and with a bit of protection, on into winter. Ideal if you have a polytunnel and want winter salads.
Sowing Information
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‘Winter Marvel’
A traditional French variety chosen specifically for sowing in late summer and early autumn. It is quite hardy and will do very nicely in an unheated polytunnel or greenhouse, providing salads in winter and spring when they’re most appreciated.
Remarkably cold-resistant and carried on in the polytunnel long after other varieties had given up!
350 seeds £2.79
Jack Ice
This fantastic lettuce has dark green, crisp iceberg leaves in a loose rosette, with spiky, toothed edges. It is very resistant to disease and cold weather.
Toothed crisp leaves, cold resistant.
250 seeds, organic. £2.89
Reine des Glaces HUGELY POPULAR
The name means 'Queen of the Ices' and it is a fantastic crisphead - green tightly wrapped iceberg heads, with incredibly frilly & toothed leaves. It’s a real attention getter in the garden every summer.
About 200 years old, this strain has recently been reselected for home gardeners, and the seed we have is really vigorous. Fantastic feedback from all over the country, everyone seems to want it in increasing numbers every year.
Toothed iceberg, incredible, fantastic lettuce. Can also be grown as a Winter Lettuce, the picture here shows it unearthed from the snow where it was growing high in the Pyrenees.
350 seed , organic. £2.99
Mixed Lettuces
Flaming Oakhearts Mix
Another amazing creation from Wild Garden Seeds’ lettuce programme, which we have taken on for further development. A whole mixed family of beautiful oak-leaved lettuces splashed with red.
Incredibly limited supply from our breeding stocks. 200 packets and then that's it!
200-250 seeds, organic. £3.60
The Mortons’ Secret Mix
It is hard to explain just how wonderful this lettuce mix is. It's always tremendously popular - every harvest sells out, no matter how much we grow.
It started with seed from all of Frank & Karen Morton's lettuce breeding programmes. A huge diversity of forms and shapes, and to be clear this is NOT just all our seed mixed up, but different varieties you won't get elsewhere. This is incredibly popular, and quite rightly so - its a real bargain.
Reds, greens, brights, darks, splashes, blushes, butterheads, oakleafs, crispheads, and deer-tongue types. .. so many different lettuces.
250 seeds, organic. £3.89
Butterhead Lettuces
Butterhead lettuces have a softer texture to their leaves, the opposite of an iceberg lettuce. They’re more about flavour rather than crunch.
Optima - SPECIAL
Optima is a special find. It has a good butterhead leaves, but unusually for this type, also has really crunchy leaf ribs, so a single leaf provides this amazing contrast of textures in your salad.
It was a complete star in our 2008 trials - growing really well despite the cold and wet.
250 seeds, organic. £2.99
Oakleaf Lettuces
These are lettuces with quite an open head, and wavy edges to their leaves. They add a lot of interest to a salad, and you can pick a few leaves at a time as needed.
‘Emerald Oak’ - EARLY
Such a lovely and popular lettuce - an early, cool-weather lettuce which grows quickly from an early spring sowing. Semi-heading, it quickly makes small loose green ruffled heads that are tasty & crunchy, the right size for 1 or 2 people.
A good variety for the start of the season : sow several times in succession until the weather warms up.
300 seeds £2.78Flaming Oakhearts Mix
Another amazing creation from Wild Garden Seeds’ lettuce programme, which we have taken on for further development. A whole mixed family of beautiful oak-leaved lettuces splashed with red.
Incredibly limited supply from our breeding stocks. 200 packets and then that's it!
200-250 seeds, organic. £3.60
Flashy Butter Oak
A big, vigorous oakleaf type, with fantastic markings - the large pale green leaves are patched all over with dark red splashes.
It is ideal for picking a few leaves at a time, for attractive and tasty salads. One that we always include in our own sowings for the kitchen.
Absolutely stunning - and tastes great too.
250 seeds, organic. £2.99
Cos or Romaine Type Lettuces
‘Cos’ is the name for lettuces with upright heads of crispy leaves. They don’t make much of a tight ball, so you can take leaves off a few at a time as you need them.
“Roden” Red & Green Ruffled Lettuce - LIMITED GUEST VARIETY FOR TRIAL
A beautiful ruffled lettuce that has large loose heads - the base colour is light green with a blush of red over the top. It looks amazing, but is hard to photograph. Just a few packets for now to see what you think of it!
Guest varieties are promising new ones we haven't tested fully yet. As a crowd-sourced trial, this is your chance to help find out what does well all across the UK, so let us know what you think of them - they'll only be in the catalogue in future years if lots of people email in to say it was really good.
300 seeds £2.69
Australian Yellowleaf
A very large open-headed lettuce, with bright, bright green-yellow leaves that are gently frilled. Good flavour and crunchy texture. Very decorative, and slow to bolt. It makes huge lettuces – you only need three or four to keep you in salads for ages. This is still Ben's favourite.
Large bright yellow loosehead.
350 seed £2.49
Dark Roden
A new super-dark-red romaine lettuce, bred from 'Roden' but selected for even darker leaves, that really does appear almost black in the sun. This one grows quickly and not only looks great in salad, but also in the garden as it is such an unusual colour.
Very good as a spring or autumn lettuce. It doesn't like the peak of summer heat, as those black leaves really absorb the sun, so this one works best sown in early spring or late summer, when the temperatures are a little cooler.
350 seed £2.69
Devils Tongue
A great upright lettuce with glowing red/purple oval leaves.
It was very quick, as well as beautiful, in our 2008 trials, and attracted a lot of attention from visitors. We liked it because it stood well without bolting, and didn't get bitter in the heat.
One of the few lettuces that has both white and brown seeds, so dont panic when you see them mixed in the packet.
350 seeds , organic. £2.78
Rossa di Trento
A lovely new lettuce from the mountains of northern Italy . It makes large heads are loosely wrapped, with a proper red blush to the edge of each leaf.
Absolutely gorgeous, it really is that red & green together, fantastic in a salad bowl.
400 seed £2.69
Super Red Ruffles
This is a new one that is very exciting, from Wild Garden Seeds' collection. It starts out quite pale, but then develops a really good bright red colour as it gets bigger. The leaf base and midrib stay bright green, so the contrast looks amazing in a salad.
Incredibly limited supply from our breeding stocks. Just 200 packets this year.
200-250seed seeds, organic. £3.40
Crisphead Lettuces
This are a familiar sort with crispy leaves , like an iceberg lettuce. They usually make a wrapped-up head, so it can be harder to take just a few leaves at a time.
‘Winter Marvel’
A traditional French variety chosen specifically for sowing in late summer and early autumn. It is quite hardy and will do very nicely in an unheated polytunnel or greenhouse, providing salads in winter and spring when they’re most appreciated.
Remarkably cold-resistant and carried on in the polytunnel long after other varieties had given up!
350 seeds £2.79
“Maximo” Giant Iceberg - A NEW GUEST VARIETY FOR TRIAL
This is an extraordinarily large iceberg lettuce , with a huge loose head and easily-detached plate-sized outer leaves, ideal used whole as a fancy base for a salad. Thin to 50cm gaps between plants if you plan to let them get full-grown!
Guest varieties are promising new ones we haven't tested fully yet. As a crowd-sourced trial, this is your chance to help find out what does well all across the UK, so let us know what you think of them - they'll only be in the catalogue in future years if lots of people email in to say it was really good.
300 seeds £2.69
Fairy Tales (aka “Posavka”) - BOLT-RESISTANT
A large heading variety from Slovenia, making a tightly wrapped ball of crisp green leaves, the edges of which are just touched with a tinge of red. It’s really pretty! But the most remarakble thing in our trials was how bolt-resistant it was, it didn't run to flower or get bitter in the very hot spells we had, even when all the other lettuces gave up.
The intensity of the red colouring will depend on night-time temperatures and so varies with the season.
400 seed £2.49Jack Ice
This fantastic lettuce has dark green, crisp iceberg leaves in a loose rosette, with spiky, toothed edges. It is very resistant to disease and cold weather.
Toothed crisp leaves, cold resistant.
250 seeds, organic. £2.89
Red Iceberg
A really showy variety - tight round heads wrapped in deep red leaves. Inside is bright green so you get two colours for the price of one.
It stands well for a long time - making big tight heads quickly, and is nice and sweet, with good tolerance of cold and wet conditions.
Dark red iceberg, very pretty,now exceedingly rare, apologies for the small packet but they make very few seeds.
200 seeds, organic. £3.30Reine des Glaces HUGELY POPULAR
The name means 'Queen of the Ices' and it is a fantastic crisphead - green tightly wrapped iceberg heads, with incredibly frilly & toothed leaves. It’s a real attention getter in the garden every summer.
About 200 years old, this strain has recently been reselected for home gardeners, and the seed we have is really vigorous. Fantastic feedback from all over the country, everyone seems to want it in increasing numbers every year.
Toothed iceberg, incredible, fantastic lettuce. Can also be grown as a Winter Lettuce, the picture here shows it unearthed from the snow where it was growing high in the Pyrenees.
350 seed , organic. £2.99