Bolting Lettuce Means It's Salad Week

The rest of this week is going to be Salad Week. Why? Well, one reason is because after a holiday weekend of eating badly, I could use a Salad Week. However, the main reason is that my Red Sails Lettuce is ready. In fact, it's more than ready.

After many delicious salads from my lettuce, the plants have begun to bolt. Bolting is when the stems lengthen and flower. In my case, there were no flowers, but the stems got long and the leaves smaller:

The Lettuce began growing tall with smaller leaves

So, without studying the subject as my readers know I am prone to do, I cut down the stems:

Lettuce cut down

It seems to be working because a stem I cut down a couple of weeks ago has begun to grow new leaves:

Whew! New Growth.

Reading up on this problem, after the fact of course, I discovered that the lettuce gardener can stop bolting by shocking the plant into thinking it has not matured. One recommended way to shock it is to harvest the outer leaves. I had done that for past salads and it didn't work all that well to prevent bolting. The second recommended method is to dig up the plant and replant it. Here is more information on bolting.

My solution was to  cut down the plants and use the leaves. I must have caught them in time because they were not bitter, a symptom of bolting.

The new growth gives me hope that I didn't do too much damage, but I'll let you know hat else happens to my lettuce.