Summer Garden Pests: Cabbage Worms, Corn Earworms, & Squash Bugs

Cabbage worm damage

Warm summer days mean you need to be on the look out for summer garden pest. People seem to approach pest control with two attitudes:  the chemical warfare approach or the homemade remedy approach.  

What is lacking in both of these approaches is an understanding of insects life cycles and insect feeding habits and how the approach kills insects and how the pesticide is intended to manage your problem.  

You have to know your enemy to be successful. Different sprays whether synthetic, organic, or homemade are effective at certain stages of the insect's life cycle and their mode of killing matters.  Does it have to be ingested or does the insect have to have physical contact with the pesticide?  Also important to consider is does it leave toxic residue?  And finally is it a broad spectrum spray killing beneficial and predatory insects as well as the pest or is it safe for beneficial insects?  Some homemade remedies kill pollinators, lady beetles, and predatory insects as well as the pest.

While I don't agree with with chemical warfare especially for the backyard and small scale grower I also do not think a homemade remedy will be any more effective if you don't understand the feeding methods, killing mode, and the stage at which each is most effective.  

With the increase in organic food there has been an increase in the development of organic pest management methods.  Armed with only a couple of controls and a little knowledge you can literally take care of most pests in your garden. Organic gardening is science based.  We work with the knowledge we have of plant biology to manage both pests and disease.

Planting at the right time is an important IPM strategy.  Brussel sprouts do best and have fewer pest issues if planted as a fall crop.

Integrated Pest Management or IPM is the currant term used to manage pests.  Basically it is a fancy way of saying that you will prevent and control pests by various methods.  Overall it means you are practicing good gardening habits, monitoring for pests, and only treating when necessary. Sprays whether organic or synthetic are a last resort in most cases.

Organic IPM's involve first and most importantly building a healthy soil including both good soil structure and a healthy soil food web.  This is done by incorporating organic matter into the soil. Organic matter provides the food for healthy microbes.  The microbes in turn create a bio slime that binds soil particles together allowing for oxygen and water to penetrate and root paths to develop. 

Organic fertilizers such as bone meal and blood meal actually feed the microbe population and in turn plants excrete exudates that attract just the right microbes to the root zone.  These microbes become the fertilizer for your plant.  Bacteria are mini fertilizer bags and fungi are mineral miners that bring nutrients to the root zone of the plant.

Mulching around plants is part of a good IPM plan.

Cultural Methods:  Minimal tilling to maintain soil structure, mulching, good sanitation practices, crop rotation, companion planting, proper plant spacing, planting at the proper times, proper fertilizing, and water.  Many pests we inviting into our garden because of our poor garden habits.  For example water stressed plants are vulnerable to attack by pests.

Biological Methods:  planting nectar producing flowers and herbs among your garden crops provides shelter and food for pollinators and predatory insects such as lace wings, lady beetles, predatory wasps, beetles, and pirate bugs etc. Providing a water source and not using any spray synthetic or organic that kills the good guys.

Releasing beneficial insects and using predatory nematodes is an important biological control.

Planting resistant varieties is also a good practice.

Monitoring for pests:  Spend a little time in the garden each day.  Check the underside of leaves for eggs and larvae.  Look for sucking damage and chewing damage.  Sticky traps are good for monitoring what insects are in your garden.

Strategies for controlling pests:  handpicking pests off, spraying off with water (aphids), crushing eggs, covering with a light weight row cover, trapping, and using soft organic sprays that selectively kill the pests with little or no damage to the "good bug" population are all apart of organic IPM.

So lets look at a few summer garden pests and see how you would implement an IPM.

Cabbage worm on underside of cauliflower.

Cabbage Worms

That pretty little white butterfly you see flitting about your garden early spring is searching for your cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts.  It lays it's eggs on the underside of leaves and the larvae, a little green caterpillar, has a voracious appetite and is responsible for all the holes in your leaves.

There are 3  common caterpillars active right now: the imported cabbageworm, cabbage lopper, and diamondback moth.  

The imported cabbageworm is the larvae of the white butterfly you see so often enjoying your garden.  It is a lime green to dull green caterpillar feeding on the underside of leaves.  

The cabbage lopper adult is a brown moth.  The larvae is a light green with white stripes down it's back.  It moves like an inchworm.

The diamondback moth larvae is a light green caterpillar with two hind prolegs that stick out the back.  This worm only grows 1/2 inch long.

All three green demons chew holes in the leaves of the Brassica family and leave frass (excrement) on your produce.

A healthy cabbage forming a head with no pest damage.

IPM Strategy:

Monitor daily.  Look for holes and check the underside of leaves for the worm.  Hand pick them off which is all you need to do if you have a small garden.  Cover with row covers in early spring to prevent egg laying.  Kaolin Clay (Surround) is what it says, a clay that is sprayed on to deter feeding  

Spinosad is a fermented bacteria product that is ideally designed to kill caterpillars.  It is safe for beneficials but until dry can kill bees.  Normally bees are not hovering around cabbage but to be safe spray early morning or evening when bees aren't flying.  Spinosad leaves no toxic residue and can be repeated if needed every 10 days. 

Neem oil is also effect and safe for all beneficials. It must be ingested to kill an insect.  Neither of these sprays instantly kill they disrupt feeding, molting, and disrupt the nervous system so you see results in a day or two.  

An example of interplanting cauliflower with onions and celery.

Cabbage Aphids

These pesky insects live in colonies and are easy to dentify. They have a white waxy coat.  The female gives birth to many live offspring both winged and wingless.  They are fast growing colonies. They like cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.

Feeding and Damage

Yellowing foilage, stunted growth, and cupping leaves are caused by the aphids feeding.  They suck the juices of the leaves.  

Monitor daily around the cauliflower leaf wrappers for cabbage aphids.

IPM Strategy:

Look for the start of aphid colonies on the youngest, highest, and innermost leaves of plants.  You need to check the flowing parts of broccoli and cauliflower and pull back the wrapper leaves of cabbage.

It is important to plant those crops of the cabbage family in early spring.  Much of your harvesting can be done before aphids appear.  Monitor daily and spray off with a stream of water colonies that start.  If it gets out of control you can spray with Neem oil or pyrethrin.  Insecticidal soap which can be homemade or purchased works on aphids but is photo-toxic if applied in high temperatures. Be cautious in using  insecticide soap.  Test it first.

 Interplanting members of the cabbage family with onions and among other crops seems to also help.

Squash Bugs

Squash bugs are active now laying eggs with nymphs hataching 10-14 days later.  A nymph is juvenille squash bug.  It is a small gray black bug that does not resemble the adult.  Squash bugs overwinter as adults and in June find your plants in the curcurbit family and lay a cluster of copper colored eggs on the underside of leaves between the veins. They continue to mate and lay eggs through September. Eggs and nymphs are easy to manage.  The adults are more difficult to manage.

Feeding and Damage

The nymphs feed on plant juices causing yellow speckling and browning.  The adults feed on the vines damaging the xylem which allows for water transport to the leaves.  This causes wilting of individual leaves or an entire section of the plant. 

 

IPM Strategy

Monitoring when your plants are young and producing flowers is critical.  Check the underside of leaves between the V of the veins.  Squish egg clusters or cut them out. Insecticides can be used to kill nymphs. Handpick any adults or nymphs daily when inspecting your plants.  

I use a combination of sprays when I see adults or nymphs.  In one sprayer I put neem oil, pyrethrin (pyola), fish emulsion, and kaolin clay.  

The pyrthrin kills on contact and is the only thing that seems to work on the adults.  The neem works on the nymphs and is systemic meaning it is taken up by the leaves.  The kaolin clay is a feeding deterrent.  

After and during bloom spray only in early morning or late evening before pollinators are out.  This can be repeated every 5 days.  

You need to keep monitoring for eggs.    When picking them off plants I put them in a bucket and feed them to the ducks. 

This might sound labor intensive so if you truly do not have time, do not plant squash.  Allowing squash bugs to take over ensures that the following season your problem will be worse. 

You might be thinking why not use a synthetic spray such as Sevin?  The people who use Sevin are the people who most often ask me how to get rid of squash bugs. Sevin is a broad spectrum insecticide that really has no place in the backyard garden. It is not more effective than the methods I suggest and is NOT a one time squash bug killer. There is no way to exterminate all pests that's why it is call a Integrated Pest Management system requiring management on the part of the gardener. 

Corn Earworms


The corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea) is one of the most destructive insect pests attacking corn.  The adults are a brownish grey moth that can travel long distances.

Damage usually begins in the corn’s silk, where the moth deposits its eggs. The caterpillars (larvae) follow the silk down to the ear, eating as they go. Extensive damage is often found at the ear’s tips, where the worms devour kernels and leave their excrement. 

The larvae can often destroy the silks before pollination is complete. The result is deformed ears often then susceptible to mold and disease. Worm damage is usually confined to the tip of corn ears and can easily be cut away. 


Each year, massive amounts of pesticides are sprayed on commercial corn fields in attempts to kill larvae. Genetically engineered corn, each kernel producing its own pesticide, was developed with corn earworms in mind. Fortunately corn earworms a relatively easy pest  for the backyard grower to control.

No damage from corn earworms.  This is Jubilee sweet corn.

IPM Stategy

In the fall, tilling will expose the pupae or chickens and ducks can be turned loose to dig for pupae. Corn which requires a block or a large planting for complete pollination is one crop I plant in a field in wide rows.  I rotate it every year. If I till I do so in early spring.  In the fall the chickens and ducks clean up the remaining pests. 

I'm not sure if this is actually beneficial but I have a bug zapper that is near my orchard and corn field.

Begin spraying Spinosad (Captain Jack's Dead Bug Drew) when the silks are developed and spray until they dry every 10 days.  Bt or Neem will also work but I prepfer Spinosad when dealing with caterpillars.

If you have only a small patch of corn, then you can add  vegetable or mineral oil to the ears tips to suffocate feeding larvae.  To make that more effective add a little Neem Oil. This is very labor intensive and not as effective as using Spinosad.

Dried silks mean you no longer can treat for corn earworms.

Knowledge truly empowers the gardener to come out conqueror in battling summer pests.  Don't give up!  Enjoying organic fresh produce you grow yourself is so rewarding and worthwhile. I did not include many pictures of the pests because I don't have very many pictures  Also I wanted to show you that organic methods work very successfully for the backyard grower.  Your garden will feed your family and not your frustrations of summer pests.  

Saving Seeds: Garden Peas

Most species of peas are gown for the edible sweet peas and edible pods.  Peas come to us from the Eastern Mediterranean.  Sweet varieties are used as vegetables and the starchy varieties are grown for fodder or dry use.  There are also varieties with edible pods and tender shoots which are edible also. Sweet peas have green or white seeds, white flowers, and wrinkly seed coats.  The starchy varieties have smooth seeds, violet flowers.  These are frequently grown for forage, cover crops, and silage.

Peas are great for beginning seed saving.  The flowers are perfect meaning they have both male and female parts and they are self pollinated.  It's believed the flowers are pollinated before opening so crossing is very minimal and isolation for the home gardener not required.  

Peas are in the legume or Fabaceae family. They belong to the genus Pisum and the species sativum.  P. Sativum or garden peas do not cross with any other species of peas or beans. (Seed to Seed, Suzanne Ashworth)

Seed Production and Harvesting

Peas mature in early summer. To enjoy continued production harvest frequently.  This encourages new flower and pod production.  

When you are ready to save seeds just quit harvesting and allow the pods to dry completely on the vine. Pods mature from the bottom up on the vine.  There are two stages the pods go through when developing. They first elongate and and widen.  In the second stage the peas fatten and mature. Do not pick before the pods are completely dried. With completely dry pods, you can hear the seeds shake inside. (The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds, Robert Gough and Cheryl Moore-Gough) 

I finally broke down puchased pea fences.  They are great.

Seed Cleaning

Pick completely dried pods and store in a warm, dry place.  After 1-2 weeks shell peas from pods by hand.  You can fail them if you have a large quantity. Do this by placing pods in a burlap bag or pillow case and gently flail against a hard surface.  

Tips on Growing Peas

Begin you seed saving journey with your favorite heirloom garden pea.

Tall Telephone peas are a climber reaching 4-5'  and are an heirloom dating back to 1881. 

Controlling Grasshoppers in the Garden

 Grasshoppers can  be devastating to gardens as well as landscape. The number of grasshoppers depends on weather and biological conditions. Grasshopper females lay eggs in late summer.  They deposit these elongated masses of eggs in the soil.  Early spring grasshopper nymphs which resemble the adults but are smaller emerge.  The nymphs frequently molt and take 40-60 days to develop into adults.  

Utah has three major groups of grasshoppers: the slant-faced grasshoppers, the band-winged grasshoppers, and the spur-throated grasshoppers. (USU Vegetable Pest Advisory)

The slant-faces, as their name implies, generally have angled faces and long, thin bodies that enable them to blend into the grassy vegetation. (USU Vegetable Pest Advisory)

The banded-wings are the conspicuous hoppers with often brightly colored hindwings that snap and crackle as they fly short distances. The banded-wings are especially common in open desert and scrub; they blend in well with their brown surroundings. (USU Vegetable Pest Advisory)

The spur-throats include the most injurious species. Their name derives from the tubercle projecting between their front legs. (USU Vegetable Pest Advisory)

Damage from Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers with their chewing mouth parts can devour a whole plant or leave ragged holes in plants.  Grasshoppers love young green plants of corn, lettuce, bean, carrot, onion, some annual flowers, and melons. Damage occurs in the early summer after rangeland weeds dry up and usually lasts for a few weeks. (USU Vegetable Pest Advisory)

Management:

Grasshoppers are difficult to manage because different species hatch a different times and they can travel long distances.  It's best to go after the young nymphs in spring.

• Row Covers:  Row covers are a plant fabric used to protect crops from cold and insects.  They need to be removed; however, for pollination.  If this is done in early morning grasshoppers are less active.  The crops can be covered again in the afternoon.
• Use baits. The insecticide, carbaryl, is mixed with wheat bran to create a bait. Spread it evenly throughout the habitat and reapply weekly. The bait can also be placed inside a container, such as PVC pipe segments, to protect it from getting wet (wet bait is no longer attractive to grasshoppers). Carbaryl is toxic to beneficials but safer for bees if used as a bait. It is not an organic spray.  USU Vegetable Pest Advisory
• Nosema locustae is a biological insecticide bait that must be applied to early nymph stages and is specific to grasshoppers.  It is a fungi that affects the digestion of grasshoppers.  It contains azadirachtin, a natural biological agent that is found in neem oil; and organic pyrethrins. If organic control is your goal, avoid compounds labeled as pyrethroids. These pesticides add synthetic chemical compounds to natural pyrethrins, and thus cannot be considered organic pesticides. After feeding on the bait, grasshoppers stop feeding, become lethargic, and die. The disease is contagious and will infect other grasshoppers that cannibalize diseased grasshoppers in the area. (USU Vegetable Pest Advisory)

• Kaolin Clay is a white clay sprayed on plants to discourage feeding insects.  The clay is irritating to insects.  It can discourage young grasshoppers nymphs. This is only a deterrent.
• Encourage predators that eat grasshoppers.  Birds, praying mantis, toads, chickens, and some snakes. While chickens eat grasshoppers they will also eat and damage your garden but you could make a chicken run around your garden.  Toads and praying mantis are easier to encourage in the garden but their impact will be small on large grasshopper populations. Personally not too excited about snakes in my garden.  They may keep me away.
• Tilling, weeding, and mowing.  If your garden is in a meadow mow a 6ft strip around the garden this makes it easier for predators to find grasshoppers and the low grass offers no food for nymphs. Grasshoppers lay eggs in the soil and the eggs overwinter and hatch in spring. Tilling the garden, turning raised beds with a shovel, or tilling ground around the garden in late fall and early spring will destroy eggs that were laid the previous summer. 
• Aerial sprays can be coordinated with the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food. The USDA threshold for rangelands is 9 nymphs per yd2; agricultural thresholds would likely be lower. (USU Vegetable Pest Advisory)

Having given all these options grasshoppers are a difficult pest to control. Large infestations caused by migratory grasshoppers seem to be cyclic and are very difficult to manage. They cause extensive crop damage. They have multi-year cycles but will decline with each year. 

The average grasshopper population will also be more challenging to handle if your garden is in a meadow.  Hot dry conditions mean more grasshoppers.  

On an average year you should have some success using multiple methods mentioned above.  

• For example tilling or turning beds in fall and early spring. 
• Mowing a 6 ft wide strip around your garden. 
• Using the bait Nosema lucustae in early spring when nymphs appear, remember it is only effective on the young nymphs.  
• Covering crops the grasshoppers like such as corn, beans, carrots, and lettuce.
• Using kaolin clay as a deterrent

I'm linking to USU Grasshopper Pest Advisory that is more specific on products labeled for use on grasshoppers in Utah and how to use them.  These products are not organic but you do have these options if your garden is only feeding the grasshopper population and not your family.

Comment if you have had good results with any of these products.

Grasshopper Pest Advisory

Meet the Italian Heirloom that is Meant for Sun Drying

 Meet Principe Borghese

After trying Principe Borghese tomatoes, you'll always have a spot for these little beauties in the garden.  These are a determinate bush that grows clusters of grape shaped tomatoes.  They are very fast growing and prolific.  This are one heirloom that is easy to grow.  One or two bushes will give you loads of these gems. Plan on staking them up. The fruit ripens fairly evenly on the spray and can be sold at farmers markets on the spray.

They are an heirloom from  Italy where they are sun dried.  Once dried the tomatoes can be reconstituted into sauces, pastas, or salads.  The moisture content of these tomatoes is low making them ideal for drying.  Principe Borghese is only an 1 to 2 inches but big in rich tomato taste. That taste is not lost when they are dried.   The fruits maintain their color and flavor when dried.  The size is ideal for drying, just slice in half.

I've tried other dried tomatoes and they do not compare.  This is the only tomato I dry. Since it is an heirloom you can save seeds and plant it every year.

Drying Tomatoes

Principe Borghese are easy to dry.  Just slice them in half and place them on your drying trays.  I set the dehydrator at 130 degrees.  Drying times will vary.  When they are dry put them in an airtight vacuum sealed jar.

Ways to Use Sun Dried Tomatoes

 1. They are the perfect addition to pasta dishes.  I add the tomatoes to the pasta water the  last few minutes of boiling.  This allows the tomatoes to reconstitute.  

2.  You can powder dried tomatoes in a food processor.  The tomato powder can be used to make tomato sauce and tomato paste.

3.  Reconstituted dried tomatoes add some zing to salads.  I especially like them with olive oil based dressings. 

4. Make Marinated Sun Dried Tomatoes and use them in all the sames ways listed above.

5.  Reconstitute and put on pizza.

Recipe for Marinated Sun Dried Tomatoes

1/2 cup olive oil
4 minced garlic cloves
1 Tbs fresh rosemary or 2 Tbs dried rosemary
1 small dried red pepper
2 cups dried Principe Borghese tomatoes
1 Tbs dried parsley
1 Tbs dried oregano
2 cups olive oil

Heat the 1/2 cup olive oil in microwave or on the stove top.  Add garlic, rosemary and the pepper.  Set this stand for 1 hour. Strain the oil.

Soak the dried tomatoes in boiling water to reconstitute. Let them stand til softened.

Drain the tomatoes and pat with a towel.  Try to remove as much moisture as possible.

Pack the tomatoes, parsley, oregano in a jar and pour in flavored oil.

You can keep this in the refridgerator for up to 6 months or you can freeze it.

Dried Tomato Salad Dressing

1 cup of drained tomatoes in olive oil  reserve the oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp pepper
2 Tbs fresh parsley
1 Tbs fresh basil
1 tsp dried oregano

Drain the tomatoes and chop in a proccessor until finely minced.  Add the rest of the ingredients and proccess until ingredients are combined.

Serve over salad, sliced cucumbers or fresh tomatoes.

How To Transplant Tomatoes

Tips on Growing Tomatoes

Saving Heirloom Lettuce Seed

You wouldn't think tennis balls, Thomas Jefferson, and lettuce have anything in common but Tennis Ball lettuce is an heirloom variety Thomas Jefferson grew on his farm at Monticello. Visiting Monicello  and Mount Vernon are high on my bucket list. Not only do I respect these statesmen and their role as Founding Fathers I also admire their role as Founding Farmers. 

Tennis Ball

Tennis ball is a cultivar still available today to plant in your garden.  This can be your own piece of history to continue cultivating and saving seed from!  Tennis Ball is a butterhead lettuce of "small rosettes of light green leaves measuring 7" in diameter."  (Seed Savers) This lettuce was often pickled in the 17th and 18th century in a salt brine.  Who would of thought you could pickle lettuce?


As odd as it may seem lettuce is one crop I love to grow. Lettuces culinary uses are limited to salads and it cannot be preserved, yet there is something fascinating to me about the varied colors, leaf shapes, and textures. When I come to lettuce in the seed catalog, I slow down and enjoy reading the history of heirloom varieties.  Some just speak to me and must be planted in my garden.  

Heirloom lettuce is a good place to start your adventure into seed saving.  I think sometimes we take it for granted that our favorite varieties will always be around and available in the seed catalogs.  Sadly that is not the case.  One loose leaf lettuce, Bronze Arrowhead, has always had a place in my garden.  It has beautiful arrow shaped leaves that have bronze tips and edges.  I shared these seeds with my daughter-in-law and both of us have grown them repeatedly in our gardens.  This year when I went to re order this seed it is no long available through the catalog.  Fortunately I can still get it off the  seed exchange, but it's a reminder that we should all be saving our favorite open pollinated and heirloom varieties.

Bronze Arrowhead

Flowering

Lettuce is in the asteraceae or sunflower family.  With perfect flowers that self pollinate, it is a good crop to save seed from.  Flowering is triggered by long days and/or high summer temperatures. The flower stalks can be quite beautiful reaching 2- 5 feet tall. Lettuce that forms heads may need a nudge to induce flowering.  Do this by cutting one to two inches into the head as it reaches maturity. The trick is to not cut so deep that the growing point is damaged. 

Lenox lettuce flower stalks

 Isolation Considerations

If saving seed for yourself, isolating is not a concern.  There is very little outcrossing with lettuce.  To be extra safe you can separate varieties by 20 feet or plant a tall crop in-between varieties. What is a concern is the weed prickly lettuce which may grow near your garden. It's always a good idea to know the weeds in your area.  This weed will cross with garden lettuce. (The Complete Guide to Seed Saving.  Robert Gough and Cheryl Moore-Gough) Also if you are saving seed to preserve genetic diversity isolation is suggested.

You can see the flower stalks and flowers buds forming.

When to Harvest Seed

The type of fruit a plant bears is the key to how and when seed should be harvested. Lettuce fruit is an achene.  These fruits are a single seed attached to the ovary at only one point. (The Complete Guide to Seed Saving)  Flowering in lettuce occurs over an extended period of time.  Terminal flowers open first followed by the lateral flowers. The seeds are ripe for harvest 10-24 days after the flowers shed their pollen.  Lettuce seeds develop pappus, the white, feathery dandelion like structures which carry the seeds in the wind. When half the stalk is in this stage you can begin harvesting seed.

Merlot Lettuce developing a flower stalk

How to Harvest Seed

There are several methods to harvesting.  You can shake the seed heads into a bag as they begin to dry.  A seed bag can be placed over the entire flower stalk prior to flowering to avoid losing seed to shattering. Bagging is also an isolation method.  With the final method, the entire plant can be pulled up, hung upside down to dry for about a week and then the seeds are harvested.

Lenox lettuce with it's beautiful oak leaf burgundy leaves developing a flower stalk.

Seed Care and Storage

Lettuce seeds are dormant when you harvest them.  After a couple of months they can be planted.  Lettuce seed is sensitive to temperature at all stages of handling.  If the seed is exposed to temperatures above 77F, whether in storage or in the ground, a second dormancy will be induced.  Cold is needed to break this dormancy. (The Complete Guide to Seed Saving) 

This temperature induced dormancy, mimics nature's seasons and protects the seed from germinating immediately after harvest only to experience winter kill.  It allows the seed to be dormant through winter or a cold season and then germinate in the spring. 

Light is also necessary for germinating lettuce seed.   The seeds are usually pressed into the soil surface or only lightly covered with soil.  

The pvc pipes and row cover were used in early spring to protect the lettuce seedlings to allow early transplanting and then as the weather warmed us I used it as a shade in late afternoon.

Storing Seeds

Store the seeds in paper envelopes in a cool, dry, dark room.  Lettuce seed stores up to 6 years.

Recommended Heirloom & OP Lettuce

So now I get to share with you some of my favorite lettuce cultivars.  Some are heirloom with fun histories but all are open pollinated so I can save seed.  Every year I plant a growing list of favorites and try a few new intriguing cultivars. 

Rossimo a loose leaf frilly lettuce

Lunix a red burgundy oak leaf that can be harvested with the cut and come again method or simply harvest the outer leaves.

Grandpa's Admiral a butterhead with a fun history.

In 1977, 90 year old Chloe Lowry gave this family heirloom to Seed Savers Exchange.  It is named after her grandfather, George Admire, who was a Civil War veteran. (Seed Saver's Exchange)

Mascara gorgeous curly frilled oak leaf shaped leaves! Beautiful
maroon leaves.

Merlot my personal favorite.  A beautiful loose leaf lettuce easy to grow, slow to bolt, and high anti-oxidant levels.

Bunte Forellenschluss which can be either a romaine or butterhead type.  "Bunte" means colorful in Germon.  The leaves are splashed with maroon. (Seed Savers Exchange) 

A French heirloom describe in Vilmorin's The Vegetable Garden 1885. (Seed Savers Exchange)  Merveille Des Quatre Saisons is a French heirloom butterhead.

Rouge D'Hiver a Romaine French heirloom that 
dates back to 1885

Red Iceberg which is the only crisped lettuce I grow.  Slow to bolt so it does well for me.

My favorite green loose leaf lettuce is Tango real deeply cut tight dense heads.  

Other favorites:

Romaine:  Little Gem, Parris Island Cos, Cimmaron

Butterhead:  Sanguine Ameliore a rare French  Butterhead introduced in 1906

Loose Leaf:  Rossa di Trento and Italian heirloom from Milan

Growing Gourmet Lettuce