Today was the first time I took some of the lettuce to work that was from the last harvest of over two pounds. I noticed immediately that the Black Simpson Elite leaf lettuce was very bitter tasting.
Well, I know that the bitterness isn't due to lack of water nor the soil since both have been kept up well. So, it appears that the issue must be due to weather.
While I didn't really think it was extremely warm the week before while it was growing, it still was averaging around 75 – 78 degrees during the daytime.
Unfortunately, that most likely will be the end of the lettuce for the year. This week the temperatures really rose in our area. It was about 88 degrees yesterday and it is 92 today – and the weather for the next week will be just as warm. Even the heat indexes are past 100 degrees.
Oh well, we got a pretty good amount of lettuce over two months from the plants. We easily got over ten pounds of lettuce from 11 plants. I will most likely pull the lettuce out on Sunday when I do the last harvest – and this will make some room for more green beans – just as long as the green beans will grow in this intense heat!