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00:00We just spent the last 45 days growing 18 different varieties of lettuce from
00:04seed to find out if there's such thing as a perfect lettuce.
00:08The concept of this video is simple.
00:10We're going to grow a bunch of lettuce and then we're going to eat it.
00:15I hate this.
00:16And then we're going to tell you what we think of what we ate and see if maybe
00:20there's a variety that makes it to the top of our list.
00:23But we're not going to just grow 18 of the exact same type of lettuce.
00:26We're going to mix up the varieties and styles of lettuce.
00:29So first up we have not really a category,
00:32but definitely a very popular variety of lettuce. Two of them.
00:34Salanova style lettuce.
00:36We've got red oak leaf MT0 and green butter MT0.
00:40And we have six different types of romaine cause that's probably the biggest
00:43category in lettuce. The first is going to be truchas. Then we have chalupa og,
00:47which is quite a funny name. Spinach lettuce, which is definitely a lettuce.
00:51Little gem, rouge de hiver, and dino lettuce.
00:54Then you've got butterhead, probably an equally large category of lettuce.
00:58My new favorite.
00:58Yeah, we have butter crunch, which is a classic. Marvel of Four Seasons,
01:02great name on that guy. And then astrale.
01:05And everybody needs a little bit of iceberg,
01:07which is technically a crisp head lettuce.
01:09So we have two varieties here, Great Lakes 118 and Ice Queen,
01:13which sounds promising.
01:14For my biggest category we have the leaf style lettuce.
01:17So I have Ezrella, very frilly one.
01:19Tegan lettuce from Row 7 Seeds. We have red sails,
01:23salad bowl blend, Brentwood, one of my favorites,
01:27and New Red Fire.
01:28Then we have one sort of oddball, a specialty lettuce. It's called Jing Tai,
01:33which is actually a stem lettuce that grows vertically.
01:35So now let's go ahead and get these seeds started.
01:38The varieties have been revealed to you.
01:39The only thing left to do is get them off to an even equal start jock in the
01:43greenhouse.
01:44And the way we're going to do it is we've got our seed starting mix already
01:47configured in our 16 cell trays. We're going to plant two of each variety,
01:50just in case one of them goes bad. We'll start them, we'll let them sprout.
01:54And in about seven to 10 days, we'll put them out in the front.
01:56In about a week, our lettuce seedlings are popping. Let's get them in the bed.
01:59Okay. We have our bed selected here, Jacques, a four foot by eight foot,
02:02birdies raised bed. We've amended the soil. We've topped it off, leveled it off.
02:06This isn't really a lettuce grow guide video,
02:08but you normally would space lettuce like four to six inches apart.
02:11Yeah, that's pretty good.
02:12In this case we're going to space it out about a foot apart to give them their
02:16chance to shine, their chance to grow.
02:18So we're going to throw about eight, eight,
02:19and eight because we have roughly 23 lettuce varieties.
02:22And we selected this area because it gets the most even amount of sun to give
02:25them all the best chance to grow well.
02:29As the last lettuce in this gauntlet goes in,
02:32we're just going to give it a nice water in.
02:33We should start seeing some results here, Jacques, in at least the first week.
02:36Now, the one thing we didn't do is we didn't thin the varieties out.
02:39No.
02:39So there's multiple in each hole. We'll come through three or four days,
02:43thin it out to one head each,
02:45and then we'll get to tasting in I don't know, three or four weeks.
02:48Yeah, I'm excited.
02:49It's been 10 days since we've transplanted the lettuce and we've done a little
02:52bit of work and it already looks interesting.
02:54It really does.
02:55So the first thing that happened is some raccoons came and slapped us around town
02:59a little bit. So we swapped a couple of our backups in, but that's no big deal.
03:03And we just want to make sure also that we didn't have any slug problems.
03:05So you'll notice what looks like fertilizer here. It's not,
03:07it's something called Slug-O-Plus that really works well.
03:10It's an organic prevention for slugs and things like that.
03:13But all that aside, Jacques,
03:15I'm seeing some pretty crazy variants in the lettuce already.
03:18Yeah. There's differences in the colors of green and obviously there's reds,
03:22there's different textures.
03:23Even like the growth rate of them is a little bit interesting.
03:26Yeah.
03:26So what we did is we came through and thinned the lettuce to one plant,
03:30all but a few.
03:31Some of these need to get a little bit bigger before we do the thinning cut,
03:34but we only want one head of each lettuce to do the true evaluation. But yeah,
03:38it's, it's kind of interesting, like this sort of loose leaf frill.
03:41This looks like a much more substantial plant than this guy right here,
03:44but they're the exact same age. And this of course is a little gem,
03:46so you would expect it to be small.
03:48Yeah. And so basically at this point,
03:50we know it's going to be a tapestry of colors and now we just need to wait to
03:52see how they start to bunch up and form heads.
03:55Yes, exactly. So we'll check in with you probably closer to harvest time.
03:58Well, we're back with our lettuce with a few casualties.
04:01Yeah. This spot's looking a little bare.
04:02So what happened,
04:03and I have a security camera here is some raccoons and skunks came through and
04:07just kept digging up Paris Island cause and black seeded
04:12Simpson. Yeah, this is what it looks like right now. Pretty pathetic.
04:15Pour one out for our boy.
04:16So we don't have all the lettuce, but we do have most of the lettuce.
04:19So we're going to harvest them up,
04:20bring them into the backyard and rank them on aesthetics, crunch, and flavor.
04:25And at the end,
04:26we will put each variety in a tier from S at the top all the way down to
04:31F tier, something we would never want to grow and certainly eat. So Jacques,
04:35let's kick it off with Great Lakes. So at first blush,
04:39I think this is a pretty solid aesthetic. We of course have taken a few leaves.
04:42On a crunch test, nice crunch off the plant. Nice crunch right here.
04:47And also a very nice crunch in the mouth,
04:52but the flavor, I would say the leaf's a little thicker than I want.
04:56It's a little more bitter than I would want. Almost a little fibery. Yeah.
04:59So in the end, Great Lakes for us is getting B tier.
05:02So we've been munching on Truchas. I think aesthetically, Jacques,
05:04what do you think? I think it's a solid color.
05:06I like how it grades from the bottom up to a darker color. So it's very aesthetic.
05:10Yeah, that's not bad. I would say not super crispy, even as a baby green,
05:13which is interesting. Like the snap factor, it doesn't really snap apart.
05:17But the flavor. Yeah, it's quite nice. It's decent.
05:21Mild. Slightly kind of. Softer than the other one. Full,
05:26I guess you might say. I don't know. What do you think? To me, it's a B minus.
05:29Yeah, I agree. Butter crunch, aesthetically, it would be an S tier. Yeah, agreed.
05:33Crunch factor. There's something about it, the look. Yeah, it's very,
05:35very attractive. On the crunch though, I mean, it's called butter crunch. Yeah.
05:38The crunch is lackluster to me. Let's see. Give it a little, little.
05:43It's not that great, but the butter is a hundred percent there in the flavor.
05:48We might differ here, but in my opinion,
05:51if it's got crunch in the name and the crunch isn't there,
05:53I can't give it S tier. I'm going to give it an A tier. All right.
05:55I'll allow the A, but for flavor, that's an S. It's very good. It's very tasty.
06:00This one's called Azrilla. It's a little spiky, a little scary looking,
06:03but what do you think?
06:05I think if we had grown this one out fully and raccoons hadn't gotten this one,
06:08the aesthetic would actually be pretty striking. Okay. Yeah, I agree.
06:10It would be nice. The crunch is a little lackluster, but the flavor,
06:15it starts out with a punch and then it kind of goes creamy and rich almost.
06:19It is creamy. Yeah. There's like a building flavor in there.
06:22That's honestly good. I didn't think this would be a way, like a up there,
06:25but. Give it to me. What are you going? I'm going to go with a A, unseen glory.
06:30Maybe an S. It could go to S. Jing Tai on the look, pretty striking jock. Yeah.
06:34Definitely the most unique. It's more like splayed out. So that's cool.
06:36Crunch factor. Quite good actually. Yeah. Nice crunch. Yeah. Nice snap.
06:41Flavor though, is where it falls short for me.
06:45It's very fleshy almost. Yeah.
06:48I got like too much of a green taste there. I didn't like that much.
06:51And there's not a lot of like flavor on the back end of that texture to really
06:55save it for me. I'm actually going C, C minus tier. I'll allow it.
06:58Red Oak Leaf Salanova on the look, a very cute petite market style lettuce.
07:03Crazy looking interior. Yeah. Really nice. On the crunch,
07:06I would say a little lackluster jock. Yeah. Not much going on there.
07:11It's trying. And on the bite,
07:13especially if you get the top first, it's very hairy. It's hairy.
07:17I'm getting salt. That's like all I taste. Salt and bitterness. Is that a D?
07:21That's a D tier. To me, it's almost close to F. I'm going to go D minus. Okay.
07:25So Chalupa OG, beautiful little, little romaine.
07:28It's got the craziest crunch so far. Yeah, absolutely. Like off the plant,
07:33insane crunch. Next to the mic, insane crunch. Taste though, jock.
07:38Thick. Thick and crunchy.
07:41I don't know if the flavor is S tier. Everything else is. Yeah.
07:44It's a little sweet, but too much chewing. We're going to go with an A minus.
07:47So for Marvel of the Four Seasons, which is a little bit stunted,
07:50it looks beautiful, especially when it's fully grown out.
07:52Crunch factor I think is decent. Not amazing. No, but it is small. Yeah.
07:56It's small. The flavor though. The flavor, really sweet.
08:00Pretty good tenderness to it. I actually liked this lettuce a lot historically.
08:03I have to admit. Okay. So what are you going to do? I'm going to give it an S.
08:07And here's why. Caveat. Marvel of Four Seasons,
08:10you could grow it four seasons long. Heat, cold, handles it. Still sweet.
08:13Tasty. I like that. S if we grew it right and a raccoon didn't dig it up.
08:17Ice queen on the look, jock. It's an S tier lettuce.
08:21We've of course ripped a few leaves off. Crunch tier.
08:24It's probably like an A. Yeah. Not the crunchiest. Not the crunchiest.
08:28Not the crunchiest. And then the flavor though, this shines.
08:32It's kind of complex. It's telling me three stories. It's going sweet, bitter,
08:36and then a little butter at the end. A little butter on the end to finish the
08:38palate. Wow. That's really nice. I like that.
08:40I didn't think I'd like iceberg lettuce. I have to admit. But that,
08:43that might be an S. Spinach lettuce on the look. It looks like spinach.
08:48If that gives it points, I guess that's for you to decide.
08:52The crunch, it's mid. It's not that crunchy. Nothing to write home about.
08:55Here's why it's not crunchy. Take a bite. Tell me how juicy it is.
08:58Take a bite with me. I don't want to do it again.
09:00It's really dry. It's like stretchy and chewy.
09:06I hate this. I hate it. All right. That's an F.
09:10That's our first F tier. And the other small ones were actually good.
09:13So I feel like it's just out. We're out on that one. I'm out.
09:16So Tegan, aesthetically, pretty nice looking lettuce. Yeah. I like it a lot.
09:20It's very, very pretty. You've got a nice sort of leaf gradient going on here.
09:24You've got a nice crunch. Yeah. We've been chewing on it and the flavor is good.
09:29Bitter to a little bit sweet. I wouldn't say it's like blowing my mind,
09:32but I would be very happy if this was on my plate.
09:34Be very happy because that's a B tier lettuce right there. B tier.
09:37So with red sails,
09:39what's getting it is the aesthetic is kind of nice. You've got a nice gradient.
09:43You've got some speckles. I like the speckles a lot. Speckles are nice.
09:45Good crunch. The flavor, I wouldn't say I'm writing home about it,
09:48but I'd be very happy to have it in the bowl. Yeah.
09:51I'd throw it on the sailboat, take it home. That's an A.
09:54We're going to go A, A minus.
09:55Little gem, one of the most beautiful lettuces you will find. Dense, beautiful,
09:59sort of frilly, delicate crunch. Come on now. It's pretty good.
10:03Take that home. And then the flavor and the texture. It's good, man.
10:08It's so good. It like melts in your mouth way more than the other ones.
10:12And like a way that only lettuce can. This to me is S,
10:15maybe even S plus tier. Yeah. That's a $20 salad right there. Little gem.
10:19So with our salad bowl blend, of course you're going to get multiple varieties.
10:22So I think it's a pretty attractive lettuce,
10:24although it's more than one. Crunch factor, it's medium. Medium to low.
10:28Maybe a more delicate lettuce. But if you eat these together,
10:30you almost can't really tell too much difference. They're very mild flavors.
10:34But to me with the frills, that's a dressing holder. Yeah.
10:38It's a decent sort of salad bowl option. This one. I don't know.
10:41What do you think? I'd say that's a B. It's a B tier. Yeah.
10:46We have a couple that we were going to include,
10:47but frankly I think they just look a little too sad to eat.
10:50The Rouge d'Ivaire and the Astrali lettuce.
10:53We'll try them in a future video. Skunks,
10:55I guess they were S tier to the skunks. We have the green butter lettuce.
11:00Very beautiful. Probably S tier beauty. Yes. By far. I agree.
11:04Probably A tier crunch. Yeah. Let's see.
11:07It's redemption for the Salanova cause we did the red one earlier.
11:11It's a very roughly. Oh, I felt like.
11:15It's so bitter. It's so bitter. You almost don't want to finish it.
11:19I feel like this is not a lettuce to eat on its own.
11:20No, you have to combo it with something. As a standalone lettuce,
11:23you'd have to put some like olive oil based dressing on here to cut away this
11:26bitterness. It's, I would say it's five times more bitter than anything we've
11:29ever had. To me it's a C, C minus tier. This one's called Brentwood.
11:34It's a classic lettuce. People know it. What do you think?
11:36I think it looks good.
11:37I think it's not as unique looking as some of the other reds,
11:40but that's not necessarily a knock against it.
11:42It's more red than green for sure. I think the crunch is okay.
11:46Yeah, there's a lot of snappiness to it.
11:47Decent crunch. All these frillier ones are of course less crunchy and more
11:49delicate. Flavor-wise.
11:52Very neutral.
11:54Yeah. Yeah. This to me kind of goes in that salad bowl territory.
11:58Yeah. The only thing I'll say is that I've discovered now is that I don't think
12:01I like the supple lettuce as much. This one's more supple.
12:03A little more crunchy, crisp.
12:04Yeah. And for that reason, I think I'm going to put this in a B.
12:07B tier. So we've got our new Red Fire here. Very beautiful look,
12:10both in sort of volume and also just leaf structure and shape. Take a look.
12:14It's a lot of surface area on that leaf.
12:16Yeah. Look at that. Nice color there.
12:16You know that's holding dressing.
12:18That's holding some serious dressing. Good crunch.
12:21I'd say at least an A tier crunch.
12:23That's sweet.
12:23And it's sweet. It's fresh. You get a lot of volume out of this variety.
12:28I like this a lot.
12:29I think I'm going S tier.
12:30Yeah, I agree.
12:30So the Dino, very unique look. Maybe that goes for it. Maybe it doesn't.
12:35Crunch is definitely an S tier crunch.
12:37Yeah. Let's grab an inner leaf there.
12:38Yep. S tier crunch.
12:41I'll say the flavor and the texture for me, flavor's great. Crisp,
12:46fresh, kind of builds on you.
12:48Yeah, there's sweetness in the stem even.
12:49The texture is a big knock for me.
12:52It's a little tough.
12:52I do not like the texture. It's almost chewy.
12:54I don't want my lettuce to be kind of chewy. However,
12:57It's grown on you.
12:58Everything else, I feel like it's an A tier lettuce.
13:01I think it's a solid A.
13:02We've been through the varieties. We found some pretty solid S tiers.
13:05Hopefully you learned something.
13:06Hopefully you found some varieties to try out. Of course,
13:08you can grab some of those at botanicalinterests.com.
13:11And if you want to learn how to grow lettuce from seed to harvest,
13:13check this video out right here.
13:15Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.