A Seed Saver's Garden

[Decoy1]

@Decoy1 I didn't realize that you were such an avid lettuce grower! I would love to know your favorite varieties, lettuce is just so wonderfully diverse. If I had a longer season I would really move in the direction of lettuce seed saving, because I do enjoy eating those fresh leaves so much. Quite beautiful too really. It's also a real perk that they aren't prone to crossing!

I find beds of lettuces extremely satisfying, alternate rows of green and red-flushed, of smooth leaved and crinkly leaved, for example. So I grow more than we eat.
I’ve enjoyed many of the varieties bred by Frank Morton. I’ve also very much enjoyed experimenting with which varieties will over-winter in the polytunnel, which might be more difficult for you. They are cooler weather crops so not good in the height of summer. I’m not sure that your shorter season is necessarily a handicap as I fit a few successions into a year and manage to have them all year round pretty well. Some of the later sowings don’t make it to seed-producing but they’re fairly hardy so could you find under cover space having started some early indoors, say February? Rouge Grenoble is reliable.