I’ve let the lettuce go to seed for the last four or five years (there’s always more than we can eat), and it comes back every spring and fall. I started out with mixes from Johnny’s and Seeds from Italy, but the flavors have gotten stronger over time (which is OK by me) and the plants have gotten somewhat smaller (I guess I must be inadvertently selecting for that). There is wild lettuce growing outside the garden, but I can’t see that it’s hybridized with the lettuce inside the garden. Maybe I should move some of the wild lettuce in and see what happens!
My lettuce has gone largely feral, but I still save seed and plant it each spring. In the seeds I save, I select for plants that grow tall with a central stalk. I like to be able to pick nice, large and clean leaves rather than the short heading type.
I have one plant now that has survived the intense cold of a couple of weeks ago. Very unusual as I generally have none at all survive even in less extreme temperatures. I would be very excited but unfortunately, it is quite bitter tasting. I’m hoping that maybe significant cold causes that just like heat does and it will mellow out some later this spring. If not, I may just cull it out.
3 Likes
I’m starting my lettuce grex with domestic lettuces bc I know I’m not interested in selecting non bitter wild crosses. I’d just rather focus on other things and stick to the knowns for now.
I’ll enjoy reading about yalls though 
1 Like
Yeah, that’s what I would do if I were you! I don’t want to have wild prickly lettuce included in my lettuce landrace . . . I just suspect it’ll be hard to avoid crosses happening. I would never plant those weeds on purpose!
1 Like
So weird in my bones to think about selecting a quicker-bolting lettuce.
1 Like
If that survivor lettuce is still bitter in the spring and you want to cull it, let me know and maybe I can swing by and grab it 
Hope it mellows for you
1 Like
Low and behold! This morning, weeding the patch, not far from where i saw the others, a cross! Tiny but happy to survive -12degrees Celsius… How is that for taking on freezing genetics for an african cross!
8 Likes
The Buffalo Seed Company has 10 lettuce ‘landraces’ listed! I wonder how much diversity there is in these populations. And if they are more likely to cross than the typical 3%.
https://www.thebuffaloseedcompany.com/s/search?q=landrace%20lettuce
3 Likes
I have a couple of those Buffalo landraces coming up my way this spring. I think I’ll avoid actually harvesting any heads at all/culling at all this year for lettuce, and just see what goes to seed and when it ripens. Maybe I’ll save seed in two-week ripeness cohorts.
1 Like
Photos of the wild lettuce I found in a concrete ditch that I’m growing in the garden this year. It’s the most vigorous of any of the other lettuces I’m growing, completely frost resistant and is similar in bitterness to chicories but I find it sweeter and tender. We had the worst freeze in at least the past 30 years of about 10 degrees and it was unbothered. I plan on growing a lot more of this next year.
5 Likes
It looks amazing!
2 Likes
Do you know what species it is? Looks good though I’m not a fan of bitter greens. I do add them to other cooked greens when they’re around.
Nice! That looks like a great addition to your garden. And dinner plate.
I do not but might try to find out when they’re a bit older. I remember them looking a lot different as flowering adults.
1 Like
More wild lettuces. I noticed these for the first time on our property last year. They are also very bitter but with a sweet aftertaste. The texture is more waxy, thicker, not crisp and the plants grew on a stalk thickly set with leaves about 2 feet tall. They flowered at about 5 feet. I didn’t save any seed and was surprised and happy to see them today. There is also interesting variance in the leaf shape between these two. Not sure if it is an age thing.
2 Likes
Excellent!
It really does. Increasingly I find myself wondering why we grow domestic this or that when such incredible wild and nearly wild crops exist
2 Likes
I do have a lettuce project, I only saved a few seeds this last year, but probably have thousands from the year before. Back in Oregon, I was making salads all winter with them. In the spring I culled the first few to bolt, then let them go.
1 Like
That’s awesome! Maybe we can do a lettuce landrace for this years seed exhange and include lots of wild genetics!
4 Likes
This thread motivated me to make sample tastes of the wild lettuce in the area around my house. I’m pretty sure it’s Lactuca canadensis. It stays small, but it is a friendly plant that overwinters through the worst of our weather, and I am glad to have had a reason to eat it. I have also seen what I believe may be Lactuca serriola here on the farm as well, but I have not tasted any of that yet.
I am very pleased to find a variety of flavors among the presumptive L. canadensis here, and I am now planning to let some of them go to seed.
Can anyone here advise me whether hybrids between common cultivated lettuce varieties with L. canadensis are likely? If there is a recommended reference on lettuce breeding? I would be glad to read anything, even if it is dense or academic. If crosses between garden varieties and the local wild lettuce are likely I might take more intentional measures to encourage crosses 
4 Likes