I have some little romaine and butterhead lettuce.
Every year, it seems my lettuce is bitter no matter what I do. Hot weather, cool, lots of N, no N, wet, dry, moist, whatever.
What gives?
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Put some shade cloth or other cover over it and see if that doesn’t help.
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That happened to me too. The lettuce almost smelled like milk weed! It was bitter and horrible. I grew it in containers. Friends did too and theirs were beautiful. I had new soil, new pots new seeds. Nada!
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Have you tried compost yet? It grows great in 100% composted leaves, which is really a bit overkill, but I would be shocked if 2" of compost either tilled in or top dressed did not dramatically improve the situation.
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We grew a variety called crisp mint lettuce one year that was outstanding. It was a romain type that stayed sweet even in our Arizona heat. I highly recommend trying it.
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I have been growing black seeded simpson lettuce for years and it always seems extra sweet to me.
Love the color too… mixed with some darker greens like beet greens and spinach and some fresh from the garden carrots… Mmmmmm Good.
It will produce for months too, just pick a few good leaves from each bunch and it keeps coming
Below is a little salad bar I had last year… combined with fall raspberries - a very nice salad.
I have some started in the garden now, with some mixed leaf lettuce and butter crunch.
I like to make little raised beds like that in my flat garden, and I load them up with home made compost too. Those carrots there had 6-8 inches of compost under them.
TNHunter
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Good to know I’m not the only one thats incapable of growing non-bitter lettuce.
I gave up and started growing spinach instead. Just plant a fast growing variety in early spring and a slow growing (and slow bolting) variety in late spring. It doesn’t really get bitter until it starts flowering. Also tastes super sweet in the fall or if you can get it to overwinter.
Trying lettuce again this year but not doing anything different except maybe direct seeding very early. We’ll see how that goes.
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Anecdotally it seems like transplanting is what does it for me.
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I think the choice of varieties as well as time of planting ,fertility ,watering etc…has a lot to do with bitterness.
My favorite variety is
Red sails .
It’s winter hardy , late to bolt, tolerates Heat, rarely bitter.
And it can get big !
One plant can be more than a extra large salad.
This plant was direct sow late fall , oct -nov. I a unheated high tunnel.
One plant will barely fit in a shopping bag, this is one plant .!
My walking onion in back
.
Another variety I like is FORELLENSCHLUSS (SPECKLED TROUT LETTUCE)
Not as winter hardy , but late to turn bitter.
Both were sown late fall , pics taken today. .not bitter.more than I can eat. Good .!
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Other thoughts about lettuce…
I plant more than I need ( lettuce and well about everything else.)
I eat the smaller ones , often thinning around the best looking plants , saving the best for seed.
I let them bloom, go to seed.when I first notice finches eating some seed, I staple a paper bag ( or news paper ) over the seed head, write variety and year on bag, let it stand for a month or so to finish ripening the seeds. Then I just cut the bags off, and store in a dry place .
Each bag will contain more value worth of seed, than the value of one head of lettuce.
So now I have a lot of easy seed. !
I throw this around , every so often , every month or so…
Some does good , some not, ?
usually have lettuce… Somewhere…
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10 ft row of black seeded simpson in my greens bed now… next to it a row of spring greens mix… then a row of butter crunch.
So much rain this spring… later than usual getting my greens up and running.
TNHunter
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I suspect many folks, myself included tend to get bitter lettuce. I will try your suggestion.
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This might help…
Pick you a nice bowl of older dandelion greens, a few dandelion flowers (especially the green part behind the bloom)… some older more mature broad leaf plantain and eat that with a non sweet salad dressing.
Then try your bitter lettuce again… it might taste a little better 
PS… if you do eat dandelion flowers… know this the flower petals are not so bitter, quite mild, but that green part that holds it all together is quite bitter. Pick one, hold it by that green part, and snip off the petals with your teeth. Not bad at all… and the flower petals have the highest percentage of the good stuff in them comparted to the rest of the plant, stem, leaves, root.
I do eat dandelion flowers and greens quite often - but even with young tender greens they are bitter to me. Much more bitter than any lettuce I ever ate.
Good Luck with your Lettuce.
TNHunter
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Be interesting to see exactly how the professionals grow such huge amounts of lettuce out west. I have grown head lettuce several times and i’m not sure if i’ve had a salad yet from one. I know one year the slugs got them, most other years its the heat. Maybe i need to be growing them under leds over the winter in my cool basement. I could say the same for celery. Very difficult to grow. I"m growing celeriac this year.
I get tough and bitter lettuce after it grows for a spell. This was direct over-seeded back in the Spring. I cut and come again and pulled out most of the Black Simpson. But I just mow it down for cut and come again, I don’t do it the right way.
I guess all you can do is succession planting every 2 - 3 weeks and trash the bed when it gets bitter. No idea how to fix it. All my lettuce has been bitter since I started in ‘08. But I generally just grew Black Simpson. This year I am trying other types of lettuce. The problem is I just threw all the lettuce together and didn’t think there would be a difference that much.
I just tested these. They were all planted in the Spring.
Left: OK.
Center: Tougher, but doable.
Right: Very bitter.
As I said I mixed all the seeds, so don’t know what they are. I bought some lettuce at a farmers market years ago. It was bitter as well. I guess I will try to grow red lettuce from here on out. But I need to try Romaine as it is supposed to be very nutritious.
Here is Google on red lettuce. I never considered reds before. I just got some by chance to plant this year. I thought green was where it was at for nutritious lettuce. Looks like Red Sails is one of the top varieties to grow.
……………
Red lettuce varieties are prized for their anthocyanin-rich, vibrant leaves and generally fall into loose-leaf, romaine, butterhead, or oakleaf categories. They offer varying textures and visual appeal, ranging from deeply ruffled to crisp and mild. [1, 2, 3]
Here are some of the most popular red lettuce types:
Loose-Leaf Varieties
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Red Sails: Perhaps the most widely grown red leaf lettuce. It features large, frilly burgundy leaves with green bases. It is highly prized for its mild, sweet flavor, quick growth (45–55 days), and heat tolerance. [1, 2, 3, 5]
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Lollo Rossa: An Italian heirloom known for its intensely curled, ruffled leaves that are dark reddish-purple. It provides excellent crunch, grows well in containers, and retains its striking color well in salads. [1, 2, 3]
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Red Velvet: Features intense, rosy-red ruffled leaves with mild flavor and great disease resistance. It adds great ornamental value to flower or garden beds. [1, 2, 3]
Romaine (Cos) Varieties
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Red Romaine: Tall, crisp leaves with a rich red outer coloring that fades to green on the inside. It has a sweet, flavorful crunch and is very slow to bolt in warmer weather. [1, 2, 3, 4]
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Intred: A crisp, mini romaine with deep red, upright leaves. It retains its color well and provides excellent structure and color contrast in salads. [1]
Oakleaf Varieties
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Rouxai: Features deeply lobed oak-leaf-shaped leaves that are a bright, glossy red. It holds its color well, is heat-tolerant, and offers a tender, non-bitter texture. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
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Galactic: Produces glossy, burgundy-colored broad leaves with hints of green at the base. It is an open-pollinated variety favored for baby leaf production. [1]
Butterhead Varieties
Funny you say that, I ditched Black Seeded Simpson in my trials because it was bitter as a baby lettuce without much flavor. Optima is the most consistently sweet variety for me. It’s labeled as a butterhead but it’s really halfway between butterhead and Batavian. Very crisp with dense heads. It sort of tastes like sweet corn by itself.
@BackyardProduce… a few years back I experimented a little and found the best time to grow lettuce here.
I normally start mine after a few light frosts in early December… and grow it all winter until late May or early June.
I grow several varieties of leaf lettuces… some reds, some green and black seeded simpson is one that is included in the mix.
None are ever bitter… it is all sweet and delicious… well as sweet and delicious as leaf lettuce gets.
I expect that just about anyone that is getting bitter lettuce… is simply trying to grow it and harvest when it is too warm.
When I grow it December to May… for most of that period there are absolutely no pest… bug/aphid/snail free and awesome harvest as you can see.
I stop growing it late May, early June because that is when the pest start showing up.
I expect it might start getting bitter soon after that too.
I have successfully grown lettuce all winter the past 3 or 4 years. I use c9 incadescent bulbs to get thru the really cold nights.
TNHunter
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If you have not seen this post… you might check it out.
TNHunter