Winter lettuces will thrive with a bit of help
When selecting and planting greens for your winter garden, Mike Irvine, associate home and garden editor for Sunset magazine, recommends:
Find the sun. The sun rides lower in the winter sky, so make sure your planting area is getting six to eight hours of sun.
Amend your soil with compost and a good, all-purpose fertilizer. Start with fresh soil if you’re planting in pots.
Watch your water. Keep the ground moist, especially during temperature spikes, but be careful not to over-water. Wet leaves in the cool months can lead to mildew and rot.
Transplants or seeds? Most greens grow easily from seed, but transplants give you a head start. In SoCal, most nurseries will hold off on stocking lettuces and other greens until late October/ early November to avoid hot temperatures.
Get ’em young. For salads and sandwiches, pick leaves when they’re young; greens get more pungent and/or bitter as they mature. Older leaves can be used in soups or stir fry.
Ir vine’s favorites for kale include Tuscan or Toscano varieties, (a.k.a. Dinosaur Kale), Red Russian with its blueish purple leaves, and Scarlet Kale, “a frilly, ruffled guy great for making chips.” Bonus: These kales are beautiful in the garden too.
The more the merrier! Plant a variety of loose-leaf and heading lettuces, Irvine suggests. “They’re easy to grow in winter, and you can almost cut them to the ground and get a second flush of growth.”
Ask your nursery about the varieties it offers. For seed, Irvine recommends the Kitazawa Seed Co. in Oakland and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Petaluma, as well as Adaptive Seeds in Oregon, which offers organic seeds for short-season climates.