So I had this bright idea to plant a bunch of lettuce to fill out my early season table at the teeny little farmer's market I signed up for. Butterhead and romaine. It grew just fine.

But...

It's filled with slugs and dirt. When I say filled with slugs, what I mean is as you peel off the outer leaves, you get an assortment of slugs living between them. This happens at least until you get to the halfway point of the head. (Mostly the butterhead; less trouble with the romaine.)

As far as the dirt goes, you really, really have to scrub to get it all off. And it continues well into the head, too.

So when I'm putting this lettuce on my own table, I can deal with it. Pick as many slugs off as I can find outside and flick the rest down from the deck to the driveway below as I clean in the kitchen. But if I had purchased that head of lettuce from a vendor at the farmer's market, I doubt I would be too pleased.

Naturally I'm baiting the slugs with beer and Sluggo. This has helped a little, but seriously NOT ENOUGH!

Any suggestions??? Unless I come up with something fast, I'm going on a lettuce diet for the next month.

Try soaking the heads in a bucket of salty water followed by a dunk in freash water before heading to market. I read (here somewhere) that the salt drives the slugs out and it really works. My lettuce has slugs too This is the first year I've seen many slugs here in ND.

If you want to sell them and are unsure about dirt and slugs why not take the the leaves off the core, wash and dry the lettuce and bag as mixed lettuce (both butterhead and romaine). My bag lettuce sells better than heads at my market.

I prefer buying lettuce that is washed and bagged and especially if it contains more than one kind of lettuce...yum.

Ok, great! Thanks so much! Those are both great suggestions. I'll let you know how it goes.

Great news! I sold 2 bags of lettuce this afternoon at the teeny market. After a salt water soak and three rinses, I still got a half dozen more slugs out when dismantling the 2-1/2 heads of butterhead, so dismantling was a very good idea. Which leads me to some more interesting ideas for next year!

So why can't those darned slugs just eat the weeds?

Homegrown lettuce sounds good right now it is too hot& dry for lettuce I can't wait till fall

quote:

Originally posted by Garlic Lady:
Homegrown lettuce sounds good right now it is too hot& dry for lettuce I can't wait till fall

I would gladly have traded you a few extra degrees warmer in May and June for some lettuce today.