Continuity Lettuce

Fall Planted - 100% Success

I'm sorry to read of the difficulty others are having with this wonderful Butterhead Lettuce! I planted six seeds directly into my raised bed garden in early August when space opened up hoping to 'get a few.' All six came up and one extra seed that I dropped and didn't know it! In the cooling down season of late August here in the Inland Northwest and on into September they grew and I harvested the first, beautiful head at the end of September. The others followed in October as we needed and the flavor and texture is pure butterhead. Wonderful! I recommend direct seeding into the garden for the best germination results.

Vigorous plants, poor germination rates

Very low (under 20%) initial germination rate. 3 batches of cell trays planted into the usual well finished sifted compost I use for most seeds. Most recent batch was done at around 45-50 degrees and came back about 25%. The others were in the mid 60s, and were closer to 10% germination. Other lettuces are doing great under identical conditions, I'm not sure what's going on with this one, but I dont want to give up on this variety just yet. If there are special germination parameters specific to this strain, it would be nice to know about it (thinking super cool temps with short fluctuations of warm and maybe more airy starting medium?). They're definitely finicky. Please and thank you Territorial Seed! That said, the plants that have sprouted and now made it outside are the leaders in my early spring garden on the northwest Washington coast. They seem to be showing off in terms of relative vigor and even surviving light frosts while putting on good growth! They are starting to show a blush of red and are as nice to look at as (I hope) they are to eat! I'm going to try them again in late summer/fall for winter lettuce on the maritime Washington coast, thinking these may turn out to be some real winter contenders out here! Perhaps we will get better germination next go round.