I am sharing some observational results from 5 lettuce varieties I grew this spring. Five lettuce varieties were set out as transplants 2/28/2025 at my home near Waterloo, IL. Since I don’t have a high tunnel but I wanted to afford some protection for the plants, they were covered with a plastic covered low tunnel. They were vented/uncovered to maintain appropriate temperatures. A good part of March they were covered or just vented, but closer to April they were uncovered except a few cold days. Varieties were set out 10 inches apart and included butterhead, romaine, and bibb types. All varieties are from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Harvest was 4/29/2025 and data was collected on 5 heads of each variety. Picture and notes on each variety are below.
Note: if you do try this remember that a solid plastic cover can get very warm very quickly on even modestly warm sunny days, and if not opened, you can also overheat plants. There are other covers such as row cover or slitted plastic row cover that are more forgiving on those sunny days, but they also don’t hold as much heat on the cold days and nights.
If you grow lettuce or are interested in growing it, maybe this will give you a few ideas you might want to try. Each of these varieties have their own unique traits and with different shapes, sizes, weights, and colors. This is just a small sample of the many lettuce varieties available today, but all five of these varieties made a very nice, high quality cut head for early spring production, that would make a nice addition to any market.
Rosaine is a small mini romaine type lettuce with a deep burgundy color with a bright green inner head. Heads are small but very solid and tightly packed. Heads are about 4 ½” tall and about 0.40 lb each.
Little Gem is a bright green, bibb type lettuce. Heads are tall and loosely packed (not as tightly packed as Rosaine). It has a very nice sized head coming in at about 8” tall and 0.69 lb each.
Thurinus is a very deep burgundy red romaine lettuce. It’s color is very striking and one of the deepest reds I have seen. It does have a litte green on the inner leaves Heads are tall and very loose. It had the tallest head of these coming in at 9” tall and 0.43 lb each.
Nancy is a bright green, butterhead type lettuce. It forms a nice moderately tight, round head. It had the largest head of these varieties coming in at about 6” tall, 8-10” in diameter and 0.82 lb each.
Skyphos is a butterhead type lettuce, burgundy red with some hints of pink as it transitions to a mostly green center core. It forms a moderately loose head (not quite as tight as Nancy). It has a nice balance of shape and color and comes in at about 6” tall, 7-9” in diameter, and 0.63 lb each.