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Winter Is Perfect For Lettuce

Kiki Fontenot
/
LSU AgCenter

Cool days and chilly nights are exactly the weather that lettuce enjoys. While lettuce cultivation during the summer  months is the standard in the northern states, our summers in Louisiana are much too hot for lettuce to endure. It's a cool season crop for us in Louisiana, with a planting season from September through March and a harvest season in May.

According to some references, lettuce was cultivated more than 3,000 years ago by the Babylonians and even earlier by the Chinese. Lettuce seed was sealed in Egyptian tombs. During the middle ages in Europe, lettuce was served as a hot dish. By 1865, seed companies offered 113 different varieties of lettuce to American gardeners.