It’s that time of year in zone 6a when the lettuce begins to do some strange things. Lettuce is a cool weather crop and, when the temperatures rise, it begins to turn bitter and bolt (revolt?) from the heat. Bolting simply means the plant is maturing and preparing to create seeds. It’s one of the weird mysteries of planting lettuce (and growing a garden in general) that you don’t get to see when you buy a nice, boring head of iceberg at the grocery store.
The first time I grew lettuce, I had no idea it was coming. I went away for a week or so, and came back to find some alien life forms growing in my garden. What’s more fun is that each variety of lettuce, or any green, really, will bolt in its own weird way. The arugula grows long and spindly, with its green tentacles reaching every which way.