I made a fresh garden salad last night for dinner. Cucumber, spinach, Buttercrunch lettuce, Red Sails Lettuce, Flashy troutback Lettuce, arugula, and mango. Much to my surprise my buttercrunch and red sails lettuce were very bitter, however the flashy troutback was good. I looked them up online and they are both supposed to be sweet lettuces. What causes them to become so bitter? Should I water it a couple hours before I harvest?
Sounds like a delicious dinner salad and all from your own garden makes it taste even better. I have read that bitter lettuce leaves are caused by several things....heat, too much nitrogen, inconsistent watering, when it's about to bolt because of warm temperatures and the old leaves will be bitter where the young ones aren't.
Rick, hot weather makes the lettuces (especially leaf lettuces) bitter. Since we are in for a cool spell, your newer leaves will be sweeter. That's an impressive salad from your garden!
We are in Texas Rick !! Drought causes them to get bitter !! But since it is cooling off, like MG said, they will get sweeter !! Mine do that as the season wears on and temps get higher after spring planting !!
Heat is what usually makes my lettuce bitter. I barely got any greens from my garden this year because of the hot summer we had.
I ate some more today and I found that only the stems that run down the center of the leaves were bitter. I just trimmed them off and had a great tasting salad.
Nice bit of detective work in figuring out what part was bitter. It is a great feeling to eat the fruits (in this case lettuce) from your gardening effort. Lee
