SOLVING THE SEASON'S SALAD SUPPLY 



ADOLPH KRUHM 



Lettuces That Don't Head and Why They Never Can — What the 

 Gardener Can Do to Ensure Daily Salad from April to Thanksgiving 



HE one reason why there is any question at all of an all- 

 season supply of salad is that we are asking distinctly 

 cool season vegetables to adjust themselves to mid- 

 summer heat. Endive, Lettuce, Chinese Cabbage 

 revel in cool, moist weather which commonly is not experienced 

 in most parts of the country during July and August, when we 

 most desire refreshing salads. 



Five factors determine the degree of our success in growing 

 salad crops: season, soil, moisture supply, strains of seeds, and 

 cultivation. It is up to the planter's ingenuity to figure a way 

 whereby the other four factors may be combined to work against 

 the first (season) for the greatest results. Let us consider them 

 in detail. 



The first step is to put the soil in as good condition as 

 possible for the crop, which is not difficult because as a group the 

 salads are not particular. The one thing they do require is 

 liberal quantities of quickly available plant food, especially 

 humus. Humus is rotted vegetable matter and is to be in- 

 corporated into the surface soil. Fresh stable manure, dug 

 under 6 to 8 inches, Rye and other green crops, plowed under to 

 an equal depth, are beyond the reach of the salad plants. They 

 form humus in due time; but the salad plants must have it at 

 once, and my experience is that it pays to work a generous supply 

 of the commercial article right into the row. Rotted cow manure 

 and well-rotted sod- 

 soil serve the pur- 

 pose equally well. 



Strange to say, 

 moisture supply, 

 the next factor in 

 success is the least 

 important under cer- 

 tain conditions of 

 cultivation. I have 

 raised finer heads of 

 Lettuce right on 

 Long Island during 

 July without irriga- 

 tion than ever were 

 produced with the 

 help of watering. 

 When the plants do 



not get moisture from above, they go down for it— if the- 

 soil texture is right. They then form long tap roots with 

 few laterals. Surface irrigation, on the other hand, pro- 

 duced shorter tap roots with bunches of laterals; in a drouth * 

 such plants quickly shoot up seedstalks, even before heads 

 are formed. 



Strain of seed is a most important factor. Please note 

 that I say strain. Ordinarily we would specify certain 

 varieties, but in the case of Lettuce we go farther. There 

 are, for instance, two types of Tennisball Lettuce — the White 

 Seeded, with many variations; the Black Seeded, with fewer. 

 Now, White Seeded Tennisball is like to a bucking bronco — you 

 never know when it will bolt; yet nine out of ten seed catalogues 

 still offer it, for antiquity's sake. 



Black Seeded Tennisball, on the contrary, is the best of all the 

 extra early Butter-head sorts for early spring work. May King 

 and Wayahead, which I consider strains of Tennisball, are white 

 seeded, but have characteristics of merit. May King v/ill do 

 well under meaner conditions of soil and season than any other 

 extra early heading variety, while Wayahead is the earliest, 

 though somewhat more exacting. 



Amazing results may be scored with Lettuce between the 

 middle of April and the end of November, if only proper selec- 

 tions are made. It is essential to choose a variety that will 



do its best at the- 

 period in which 

 it is to be grown. 

 May King dur- 

 ing May is a 

 wonder; during; 

 July it is a joke. 

 New York or 

 Wonderful, during 

 June, is a disgust- 

 ing looking, flat, 

 coarse plant ; with 

 the approach of 

 hot weather in 

 July it fortifies its 

 interior by form- 

 ing walls rein- 

 forced by strong. 



The Butter-head 

 type leads the 

 Lettuces for com- 

 pactness in head- 

 ing and for deli- 

 cacy of texture 

 and flavor 



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