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Jan 12, 2016 7:41 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
I was most proud of these three new Frank Morton lettuce varieties:
'Flashy Lightning'
'Flashy Butter Gem' and
'Flashy Green Butter Oak'

The vendor and breeder called that last one 'Flashy Butter Oak' and it has red splashes, not just green.

Pretty varieties! (images)
http://www.rareseeds.com/searc...

But they came in such a small pkt that I only put around 1/32 tsp in each trade, like 30-50 seeds.
These are really "trial size" and I hope-hope-hope I can get them to bolt this year, so I can save seed.

Baker Creek didn't say "PVP". And this website, that DOES say "PVP" for some lettuce varieties, does NOT say it for these Frank Morton "Flashy" series.

Another website called them "Lettuce Glam". I think "Lettuce Bling" is as good a name.
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Jan 12, 2016 8:45 PM CST
Southeast OK (Zone 7b)
My petunias. They have no name, but they are a rare color. So deep that I got lost just looking at them. Cheesy, but sentimental for me. Flowers are a reflection of our souls to me. Those petunias meant nothing to the girl who gave me the seeds. She never saw the beauty.
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Jan 12, 2016 9:15 PM CST
Name: Dnd
SE Michigan (Zone 6a)
Daylilies Dog Lover Houseplants Organic Gardener I helped beta test the first seed swap Celebrating Gardening: 2015
Garden Ideas: Level 2
Perhaps my daylily seeds, since they are unique and mostly crosses I made with a specific goal for 'improvement' (as I see it).
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Jan 12, 2016 9:36 PM CST
Southeast OK (Zone 7b)
Dnd, I thought your lilies had to be beautiful. Someone snagged a couple before I could. Like you, I love red. I just know your red crosses would be beautiful. The one I did get I have already picked their spot. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Rick, don't smack me but I've never eaten lettuce other than iceberg. How different do the lettuces taste? I really wonder if the "butter " lettuces have that taste.
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Jan 13, 2016 1:51 AM CST
Highlands Ranch, Colorado (Zone 5b)
Colorado Zone 5
Container Gardener Herbs Plant and/or Seed Trader Vegetable Grower Enjoys or suffers cold winters
My sleeper was: Breadseed Poppy (Papaver somniferum), single lavender
I had a feeling this would be popular (It was in the swap just prior to this one): Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus 'Tom Thumb Black Velvet')
and the vast amount of veggies.
This is my collection that just started this year!! I started trading mid November. It has quickly grown!!
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Jan 13, 2016 5:13 AM CST
Name: Dnd
SE Michigan (Zone 6a)
Daylilies Dog Lover Houseplants Organic Gardener I helped beta test the first seed swap Celebrating Gardening: 2015
Garden Ideas: Level 2
KarenHolt said:Dnd, I thought your lilies had to be beautiful. Someone snagged a couple before I could. Like you, I love red. I just know your red crosses would be beautiful. The one I did get I have already picked their spot. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Rick, don't smack me but I've never eaten lettuce other than iceberg. How different do the lettuces taste? I really wonder if the "butter " lettuces have that taste.


Thank you. I would have offered more reds, but as I was going through my stash of seeds, I realized I didn't have many red crosses...it would seem my reds and purples didn't set pods very well this year. Next year I should have a bunch more, though, because there are several red daylilies that I purchased after their bloom season last year, but they will hopefully bloom this year.



To answer your question about lettuces, iceberg is actually the least flavorful lettuce (and least nutritious). I prefer romaines, spinach (if you count that), and butterhead.

(There is one I can't stand that always comes in spring mixes but I can never pinpoint which leaf it is I don't like. ...probably radicchio, though. )
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Jan 13, 2016 5:27 AM CST
Name: Jim D
East Central Indiana (Zone 5b)
Annuals Lover of wildlife (Raccoon badge) Garden Procrastinator Plant Lover: Loves 'em all! Native Plants and Wildflowers Region: Indiana
Hummingbirder Frogs and Toads Dragonflies Cottage Gardener Butterflies Birds
Here everyone one around me only like the things i grow , if I add small amounts to Iceberg , (production lettuce )
I made a huge bowl of Cucumber salad , It was gone in a few hours , I added a little of two types of Dandelion , mustard greens , Radish leaves and roots , a few beets , But I have to keep the Salad green flavor , with nothing more than a very light tang ,
People here don't like my Mustards and such , Only thing they eat , Green cucumbers , the white ones they think there is something wrong with , Confused I don't do the recipes by taste to often though , I was raised to ; Men do not belong in the Kitchen ,, Thank you Grandma ,, Hurray!
Some of the usual Tomatoes , and maybe a cabbage or cauliflower when I get them to grow ,
When my Brussel sprouts are to small , they buy them at the store (reminds the gals they like them ,, (subersive , me too , lol ) Hilarious!
Anyway everybody is programmed ,to eat what they do ,, or so I guess Shrug!

As said also . no particular specials except maybe a few possibles from the Cukes , Most of the Butterfly Host plants are always rather , brings in a little life to the garden , ( and no , I don't like cabbage whites and their larvae eating all my greens either , Blinking
In the Butterfly garden if a plant is not chewed up I feel like a failure
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Jan 13, 2016 11:13 AM CST
Southeast OK (Zone 7b)
I do like Ceasars salad. I make it several times during the year. I also like baby spinach salads. I pretty much figured iceberg had to be the least tastiest of the lettuces but I suppose because thats all I have ever eaten I can't imagine what the others would taste like. I'm really going to have to try a new one. My hubby fusses and says choose/plant what you know. I don't always want to. Here where I live people eat bland food so if I don't like it, it would go to waste. I belonged to a bunko group. It was the only time those ladies tried new things. Fresh basil pesto. Mmmm. At our last meeting one of the women asked me for the recipe. It was a shock. I was happy she liked it though. Now I have someone to send my leftover basil to.
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Jan 13, 2016 11:47 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
>> I belonged to a bunko group.

Bunko? I thought that meant "the confidence game", "con men", and swindlers, like felonies. But I don't think they have support groups, so there must be another meaning.

Ceasar Salad uses Romaine lettuce, which is my current favorite. Tall, tight heads with big leaves and fat white ribs that CRUNCH. It looks a little like Michihili Chinese cabbage, but different flavor.

I only started trying to grow lettuce 2 years ago, and last year I was too busy (and overrun with weeds) to plant. The one that came up were more "bitter" than I like, meaning "not sweet". I think that was "Marvel of Four Seasons" , but the weather may have been too warm for it to be sweet.

Iceberg tastes about like ice. To me, its only virtue is that it crunches. And it has the lowest level of vitamins of any lettuce type. It's kind of the "white bread" if lettuce.

"They" say that butterhead lettuce is the most refined and maybe sweetest or least bitter. I think it also has the thinnest and most tender leaves. Unfortunately to my mind, "gourmet lettuce" seems to reflect European tastes, which allow sharp and bitter flavors into the salad bowl. I like what Frank Morton said about one of his varieties: "Teenager-tested to have extra-low bitterness".

I think that each variety is least bitter if grown at the temperature and with the moisture level it prefers most. And young leaves are sweeter than old leaves. And (usually) every part of the lettuce gets quite b8itter once it goes to seed.

Unfortunately for my unsophisticated palate, many red varieties tend to be more bitter than green ones. But I like the way they look!
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Jan 13, 2016 11:53 AM CST
Name: Jim D
East Central Indiana (Zone 5b)
Annuals Lover of wildlife (Raccoon badge) Garden Procrastinator Plant Lover: Loves 'em all! Native Plants and Wildflowers Region: Indiana
Hummingbirder Frogs and Toads Dragonflies Cottage Gardener Butterflies Birds
Leaf lettuce tends to be a lot better if grown in partial shade , if you can get it to grow that way ), It is usually softer and more bitter , and not as crispy as store or iceberg If you grow it in cool weather , in just the right place , it is pretty good ,
Hot weather makes all the greens bitter here , I have grown smaller heads of iceberg lettuce here organically that were really good ,,
I like the spinach mustard when it is cool , mustard is generally way to hot for me to eat , I get seeds variance too , some cooler , some hotter ,,
My taste buds are still like a wine taster ,, despite my old bad habits , Like my two year old bottles of wine , kept in the fridge , Everybody decides it is a bottle of cheap shelf stuff a day or two old , Because they cannot tell the difference , They gulp it down before or when I cannot say anything ,, I stand there witting , no good bunch of boozers ,, Hilarious!
so obviously I cannot keep a good bottle of booze ,, Grumbling
Well enough of my Grumbling
practice with the greens ,, you will get better Thumbs up
In the Butterfly garden if a plant is not chewed up I feel like a failure
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Jan 13, 2016 12:13 PM CST
Name: Jim D
East Central Indiana (Zone 5b)
Annuals Lover of wildlife (Raccoon badge) Garden Procrastinator Plant Lover: Loves 'em all! Native Plants and Wildflowers Region: Indiana
Hummingbirder Frogs and Toads Dragonflies Cottage Gardener Butterflies Birds
A raised bed under an apple tree ,, Grows no bitter - almost sweet , somewhat crunchy leaf lettuce , Salad Bowl ,, That can be done with that , as why it is a long time standard usual leaf type offering , People here won't eat Romaine , I will ,,, I like the white Ribs , that crunch , and the cabbage too ,
Takes a really good soil , and free of bugs (insects) to grow good lettuce ,
I started by growing a few in a pot , under a tree , out of later and noon time sun , not bad ,,
Still comes back to the old it takes practice to grow a really good to excellent green , if you can really taste anything ,,
I am a grumpy old fudd aint I Hilarious!
Kids ,, "yeah ,, Elmer the farmer "
That was actually my grandfathers middle name , and here was really a farmer Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!
In the Butterfly garden if a plant is not chewed up I feel like a failure
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Jan 13, 2016 12:20 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
Even my sunniest spots have shade part of the day. And I bet the steep sun angle this far north acts like partial shade ... compared, say, to "full sun" in Texas.

Too me, all wine is spoiled grape juice. I had a chance, once, to blind-taste-test a wide range of burgundies, including a sip from a hundred-dollar bottle. I ranked them in the order of my distaste. I could almost stand the very cheapest burgundy, and the full-flavored most-expensive one was suitable mainly for unclogging drains, in my clueless opinion.

I ranked them in EXACT reverse order of their cost and, presumably, their quality.

But, on the other hand ... BEER!

"That's DIFFERENT!!", he explained.

And someone gave me a bottle of single-malt Scotch, once upon a time, to reward a favor.. Not wanting it to be totally gone, that bottle has had a little tiny puddle left at the bottom for almost 15 years.

P.S. I hope to drop the box off at the PO at lunch hour. Here it comes!

Thumb of 2016-01-13/RickCorey/38fbd2
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Jan 13, 2016 12:28 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
>> it takes practice to grow a really good to excellent green ,

I believe it. I'm in my first few weeks of kindergarten when it comes to any non-Brassica. And I'm in First or Second Grade when it comes to Brassicas.

My rule of thumb with Brassicas and now lettuce is that they would probably have been better if I had started them a few weeks earlier - in cold and totally water-logged clay. I think the best year was when I set up a sloppy low hoop tunnel to throw enough of the spring rain away from one raised bed so I could start there a little earlier.

It's satisfying that, no matter how much I read about some aspect of gardening, only the DOING, not the reading, teaches HOW. Makes it more challenging and REAL.


It's like the plants are watching over my shoulder and laughing as I make my plans based on what I read.

"Oh, we are going to have so much FUN messing with his head once he stops reading and starts weeding!"
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Jan 13, 2016 1:38 PM CST
Southeast OK (Zone 7b)
I agree Rick. Doing teaches me better than reading. However I am proficient at making notes then running into the house to read before I kill. Hilarious!

I did not realize lettuces need partial shade. So now I know what to plant in the part of my garden that hubby is expanding. I've been racking my brain silly trying to figure out what to plant in those spots. Another lesson learned. Thank you jimard!
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Jan 13, 2016 2:00 PM CST
Name: Jim D
East Central Indiana (Zone 5b)
Annuals Lover of wildlife (Raccoon badge) Garden Procrastinator Plant Lover: Loves 'em all! Native Plants and Wildflowers Region: Indiana
Hummingbirder Frogs and Toads Dragonflies Cottage Gardener Butterflies Birds
Karen where your at , I would even try them as a winter crop . I have seen them still grow down to 18 degrees , Maybe a little less .. But I doubt they would germinate under freezing or about 38 maybe 40 degrees ,
Until this week at zero degrees , my kale and parsley kept right on growing ,
Even leaf lettuce will have a crispy or crunchy rib , in what we would consider to be a very cold temperature
Only something to consider as a test . I don't give advice .
As the two of you talking about this had said , experience is in the doing , and micro climate to micro climate , it can really make info , be ,, well ,, yeah that , as said a real mess with the head ,,
In the Butterfly garden if a plant is not chewed up I feel like a failure
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Jan 13, 2016 2:17 PM CST
Southeast OK (Zone 7b)
You are right jimard. Planting them as winter crops make more sense. I've lived in the deep south all my life until 4 years ago. I'm still learning how to garden in Oklahoma. Each year the weather is different here. In the south, it's always the same. You can set your watch by it.
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Jan 13, 2016 5:11 PM CST
Name: Dnd
SE Michigan (Zone 6a)
Daylilies Dog Lover Houseplants Organic Gardener I helped beta test the first seed swap Celebrating Gardening: 2015
Garden Ideas: Level 2
LoL, there are so many great things to respond to that you are saying in this thread and I don't have time to comment on much of anything yet...

I'll say really quickly, though, that growing your lettuce to the east of tall plants will help provide shade from the hot afternoon sun. If you don't have trees, try to atleast do this. (I'm also into companion planting, so knowing what you should/shouldn't plant lettuce next to can be important...for a larger guide to companion planting that most places have, check out Wikipedia's chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... )
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Jan 13, 2016 5:46 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
>> growing your lettuce to the east of tall plants will help provide shade from the hot afternoon sun.

If only I ever HAD any hot afternoon sun! When my neighbors say "hot", they mean it went over 80 briefly.

Admittedly I personally seldom want to be hotter than 70-75. But my tomatoes would ... especially if it meant that nights stayed above 60 in midsummer.
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Jan 13, 2016 6:56 PM CST
Southeast OK (Zone 7b)
Thank you for the link dnd. I companion plant as well but with the new additions being planted I don't have to search.
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Jan 15, 2016 10:49 AM CST
Name: Jim D
East Central Indiana (Zone 5b)
Annuals Lover of wildlife (Raccoon badge) Garden Procrastinator Plant Lover: Loves 'em all! Native Plants and Wildflowers Region: Indiana
Hummingbirder Frogs and Toads Dragonflies Cottage Gardener Butterflies Birds
Rick ,, I like thefight between the delivery vehicle and the garage ,, Hey ,, Kung Fu , The Drunken Postman


Here are some today , winter sow and green plants ,, the parsley is really good ,, After snoe set on it for two days , the rain has now washed it ,, After it ice freezes tonight , I don't though
Thumb of 2016-01-15/jimard8/312bb6 its a pot and jug , Hoe down

Bamboo
Thumb of 2016-01-15/jimard8/3a6c9e


Thumb of 2016-01-15/jimard8/795dc2
parsley
In the Butterfly garden if a plant is not chewed up I feel like a failure

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