A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum odd problem

we just started a garden and somethings have been ready to pick.
we have noticed somethings, everything that has been picked have been awfully spicy. the radishes i can understand but when the lettuce came out spicy, that started the questions.

i cant find anything about this so could yall help out. thanks

Welcome to the forum, darkmd.
I have no answer for your question. It is an interesting problem. iI am hoping peppereater will stop in to help you out. A couple of questions for you. What kind of lettuce did you plant? Anything besides radishes and lettuce?

that is a an interesting problem. I guess, my first thought would be what was planted there before?
now with peppers, they will be hotter they dryer the season is, but I have no idea if that would make things like lettuce spicy.
I guess another question would be, what are you using for mulch? fertilizer?
interesting problem indeed....I'll be watchig this thread. now you got me curious.

That simply makes no sense...I'm not saying you're imagining things, hehe, but I have never heard of anything that could make lettuce spicy. Are you sure it's lettuce and not mustard or turnip greens? I cannot imagine what could make lettuce "spicy." That might be a nice thing if you had enough sweet lettuce to combine into a salad. I can't imagine heat, pH, or anything else that would make lettuce spicy, but I mainly know about peppers and tomatoes, so I'm only guessing here.

what if the radishes were very close to the lettuce?

Were using pet mos, and were leaving in Texas. At the moment it is very hot and a bit dry. they are not planted next to peppers but then i don't know how far away from he pepper they need to be.

your growing lettuce in texas this time of year? you must be in north texas?

yea. lettuce shouldnt be grown now?

Raddichio? (sp?) I think a member of the lettuce family, but very spicy. So spicy that it's reported to have almost no pest problems. Looks like lettuce, especially if picked before the leaves have turned red later in the summer.

Did you plant seeds, or buy transplants?

depends on what zone your in. I'm in zone 9 where lettuce and radishs are fall (winter) crops. what zone are you in and what variety are you growing?

Hi You all...I live in Texas, zone 8 and my leaf lettuce is beautiful and tasty right now. I planted in in late april. I have never heard of spicy lettuce?

My money's still on radicchio. If you planted from seed, of course you know what you planted. But it you planted transplants from a nursery, it could have been mis-labeled. It does look like lettuce.

Wikipedia has a good photo of it growing in the field, and it's exactly what mine looks like right this minute. If I hadn't bought and started the seeds, I'd swear it was lettuce.

By chance, did you lettuce start to bolt (begin to flower) before you harvested it?
That will adversely affect the flavor.

There is basically no truth to those tales about plants being frown near other plants, those sorts of things, mainly the perception that peppers will be hot if planted near hot peppers, are apparently due to mislabeling of plants in the nursery. Not to be mean....but that kind of thing can only happen among the same species when cross-pollenation happens and seeds are saved and grown out the next season or later.
Lettuce should be fine until it bolts...meaning it starts developing flower buds or eventually flowers, and even then, I can't imagine it getting hot, but it would get very bitter or just die from excessive heat. Most crops like lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, peas, suffer from hot weather, I have terrible trouble growing them. I can get radishes in the spring, and lettuce in the fall, but the heat prohibits me from getting other cool season crops unless I'm really on the ball, and I am not!!!! I would forget my own birthday if my family didn't remind me, DURRR!
I still do not understand lettuce becoming spicy...bitter, yes, spicy.......well I guess it depends on your definition of spicy. You can grow lettuce or anythig else in any zone, but you have to get the timing right in southern climates.

ours looks like romaine lettuce but im ask my pops what he planted if it was a seed or not.

If there's a row, I'm pretty sure he planted seed, lettuce is seldom sold in cells, and it would be prohibitively expensive.

hummm. here I can buy it in cells that are overplanted and then just peel them plants apart and plant them.

Could you post a photo of teh spicy lettuce in question?