I saw this and thought? oh no! whats happened now? sorry for your loss and glad I picked my penultimate lettuce today! but evey cloud...let us know how the seed saving goes and for cabbages like me! how you went about it! thanks cassie you always put a smile on my face, which seems horrible, as you seem to have a lot of things go wrong, but you handle it with humour.

Is the weather where you live very hot lately?

I'm camped out under the A/C right now, so I sympathize.

I have plans to cover my lettuce with shade cloth to try to prevent bolting.

I gave away masses of lettuce this week because the heat was going to hit! It's been a great season for greens and a good time to try out all my favorite slug recipes ... NOT!

I had to pull out my lettuce today and yesterday. Except for the Arugla, it all bolted. On the upside, I do have a second patch started. I think I will have to be quick about eating it because the heat is overbearing. We're under a heat advisory at the moment, and I haven't turned my AC off in three days. I don't even want to think about what my power bill will look like. ::sigh::

The good news is that you now get to plant something in its place! That's the fun part - trying to decide what you want most...for me, it's a short crop, so I can use the same space for fall lettuce....bush beans. At about 50 days, they'll be done in in about 70 days, just in time for the fall lettuce that I will have started inside to go into the space.

I pulled up most of my bolted lettuce this week, the chickens had a feast from it and will turn it into eggs for me. I still have a few more plants to pull but it was so dang hot I had to come in.

Yeah, my chickens love this time of the year b/c they get the old brocc. leaves, the bolted lettuce and any other greens I can give them. They love them.

I am planting more of my beans from seed swaps to kind of grow the seeds into a full crop for next year. I am also going to attempt to save some seed from my butterhead that bolted and from a romaine that is in the proces. It was a huge head and killed me not to pick it but I wanted seeds from it since it was so gorgeous.

Nichol

This is my first year at saving seeds from my Bibb type lettuce. I'm reading your posts about bolting, and here we are going into our summer "gloom" period. The ocean is less than a mile away which gives off a heavy misty cloud cover for several months.

Well - as they say - "when life gives you lemons -" so I went out and planted some more lettuce, it won't be until mid-August when we get enough heat to bolt it. Might just as well, nothing is happening in the tomato department until then.

However, my bolted Bibb went to seed nicely. I gave off watering it and it had more sun - the little birds - a bit larger than humming birds, really made short work of those I left.

By the way, this is the first year that I saved spent greens from my garden and made vegetable stock. To go it one better, when the stock was finished I dried the remaining squeezings in my dehydrator. The resulting flakes are so flavorful. It made a great seasoning (add to bread crumb recipes - um um, top sourdough bread for a professional look.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

Is the weather where you live very hot lately?

Are you kidding me? New England is the only area in the country right now not engulfed in this heat wave. Cass lives about 45 miles north of me (as the crow flies). This weather has been anything but hot. As we wrap up June, we're talking about the possibility of seeing less than 30% of possible sunshine during what should be the sunniest month of the year. Temperature have been a good 15° below average, and no warmup is expected any time soon. The sun came out for about 3 hours yesterday (just in time to set), and was out for about 2 hours this morning. Now it's cloudy again........... ugh....... someone shoot me now please :-D

But on to lettuce.... I dont know why it would bolt when it hasnt been that hot, unless it cracked from all the rain, and it send the seed stalk up anyway.

In any event Cass, I sympathize. I'm prolly only getting one harvest of peas from this years planting.....

Don't forget that lettuce (et al) are also triggered to flower by the length of the day. Now that we've passed the summer solstice we can expect those crops to bolt.

My sympathies, I know your pain. Mine all bolted too. Sigh. Perhaps the moisture. And yes, it's nice and cloudy again here in the northeast. GRRRRR.