Lettuce in Raised beds did well until it went to seed

[RickNC]

This spring I planted lettuce in a raised bed. They did pretty good until a few weeks ago when they went to seed and the leaves got minimal. Should I have removed those and planted new? I feed the lettuces to my reptiles so I need to plant it next year too. Any suggestions there would be helpful.

Next year I plan to plant only a couple rows of lettuces and some other veggies in there with them. I thought about throwing veggie scraps into the beds this fall and winter so it can compost into soil for next spring. Good idea?

[hendi_alex]

Young lettuce is more resistant to the bolting that you describe. Several plantings two or three weeks apart should increase your harvest. Also some salad greens like romaine and arugula just to mention two, are very resistant to bolting, especially when seeded in late spring. The romaine will get bitter later in the summer and the arugula will get very strong and spicy, but if grown for reptiles, they would not likely mind either of those qualities that tend to bother us humans. Oh yes, another good choice might be to grow some swiss chard, the leaves are far more tender than most greens and can be eaten raw, mine are still growing large tender leaves. Any of these greens will do better in mid to late summer if the plants only get half day sun, but they will tolerate full sun as well.

[rainbowgardener]

That is the life cycle of lettuce. Eventually it "bolts" (goes to seed) and is finished and you pull it and start over. Lettuce is a cool weather crop, so warm temps speed up the bolting process. You did pretty well if you had lettuce until a few weeks ago. Plant new seed now for a fall crop and then you can do it again in the spring.

I prefer composting my veggie scraps in a compost pile and then putting the finished compost in the soil. Partly for the yuck factor I guess. You said "throwing veggie scraps into the beds this fall and winter" The fall scraps should be mostly composted by spring. The winter ones, especially if you do have temps down near freezing there in NC, are going to just sit there and do nothing until spring. So when you turn your soil in spring you will have clumps of rotting veggies in it. Also I don't know about you, but my garden has lots of critters roaming around in it (raccoons, groundhogs, possums). If I put veggie scraps in the ground like that, I'm pretty sure the next morning I would find them all dug up again.

[rainbowgardener]

Alex and I were posting at the same time! He is right about the swiss chard. I had never heard of it until I started gardening, but now I love the stuff. Always the most successful thing I grow. Plant it in spring and it just goes and goes and goes until hard frost and sometimes overwinters and comes back in spring.

[kr222]

I've had really good luck with Romaine lettuce. In particular, I grow Jericho and Little Gem. Both are slow to bolt, easy to grow, and the flavor is very good.