My favorite and most reliable summer lettuce—winner by a landslide—is ‘Jericho.’ This romaine lettuce, developed in Israel for its tolerance to heat and resistance to bolting, performs well in my SoCal summer garden. I’ve not detected bitterness but I think part shade helps. Seed is widely available for this crisp romaine. At this writing, Renee’s Garden and Johnny’s Seeds have seed available.

In a close second is ‘Cardinale’. Let’s go with a catalog description from Kitchen Garden Seeds: “Resembling a beautiful cabbage rose, this new French crisp lettuce has thick, crunchy red leaves with wavy, bronze-tinted edges. Heat tolerant, it rarely bolts.” Maybe ‘Cardinale’ is a tie for first.

I purchased the ‘Cardinale’ seed as a European Summer Lettuce Bouquet trio with ‘Redina’ and ‘Nevada’ from Renee’s Garden, though they are “temporarily out of stock.” ‘Redina’ and ‘Nevada’ have also done well in recent years in my late spring and early summer garden.

Here’s my French red leaf ‘Redina’ from a winter planting.

Here are two other romaine lettuces I’ve grown in the summer. ‘Cimarron’ and ‘Freckles’ are often included in summer lettuce offerings.

So let me know your success (or failure) with summer lettuce and check my post from yesterday on Summer Lettuce.

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