Garden Log: Ice Queen Lettuce

A French heirloom crisphead variety lettuce with excellent heat tolerance can be grown year-round

Ice Queen lettuce planted in early spring now ready for picking in early May

It’s mid-spring now so a lot of the late winter and early spring herbs and veggies are starting to peter out, making room for warm weather crops. For the most part we’re not going to miss the winter crops. Just about every summer vegetable—tomatoes, peppers, squash, you name it— is preferable to broccoli, spinach, peas, and the like.

The one cool season veggie we do miss, however, is lettuce. We’ve tried all sorts of summer / heat tolerant varieties without much success. Looseleaf, Butterhead, Romaine—you name it—those leafy greens are no match for the dry, desert heat of a San Diego summer.

Early last summer I stumbled across an heirloom crisphead (aka: iceberg) lettuce called Ice Queen which supposedly had good heat tolerance. Since none of the other lettuces were sprouting I decided to take a chance and picked up a packet of seeds to try out.

Sure enough, even though the greenhouse was sweltering in the mid-90s, just about every seed in the trays sprouted. I let them grow in the greenhouse for a couple of weeks until they had their second set of leaves. In early July I transplanted them into a shadier portion of the vegetable garden (under the hanging gourds) and waited to see what happened.

Much to my surprise, they grew quite well, showing no signs of heat stress or a desire to bolt. Within a couple of weeks we were able to start harvesting the outer leaves, and by mid-August whole heads of crispy, fresh summer lettuce.

Good flavor and Texture

Young Ice Queen lettuce has outer leaves you can start harvesting at 35 days

Unlike some of the other lettuces we’ve grown, there is no bitterness to Ice Queen. Both the ruffly outer leaves and the heads are sweet and crunchy. Better yet, the outer leaves are large enough that we can use them like slices of bread, which is a big plus for my wife who loves a good hamburger but is trying to keep her carbohydrate count down.

Sprouts in Late Summer

If the ability of Ice Queen to survive the summer heat without immediately bolting wasn’t enough, it turns out that the seed will still sprout in the baking heat of late summer. I was able to do a couple of succession plantings that provided fresh lettuce into early winter when that area of the garden became too shady and cold to keep young lettuce growing.

Grows reliably from collected seed

Ice Queen seedlings sprouted even though the temps are in the 90’s in the greenhouse

Figuring the lettuce was an heirloom and would reliably reproduce from seed, I let the last couple of heads bolt and collected the seed from them in late December.

A few weeks later, I started that seed in the greenhouse and was able to move new lettuce seedlings into the keyhole garden in late January and on into February. Sure enough, they bred true, just like the parents the seed came from. We’re harvesting the last of those lettuces now.

A Year-Round Lettuce?

I’ve been so pleased with the productivity and easy-care of Ice Queen that I’ve decided to see if we can keep lettuce growing year-round. Using some of my collected seed, I started half a dozen new plants in the greenhouse in mid-April and plan on starting half a dozen more in a few weeks. If I time it right, we should always have fresh lettuce regardless of the season!

Seed Saving

Ice Queen is an heirloom that reproduces reliably from saved seed

If you want to save seeds from this lettuce (and why wouldn’t you?), once the flowers have gone and the seed heads look downy, place a paper bag over them and hold it in place with a twist tie. Then you can clip flower stalks and hang them in the paper bag to dry. After a couple of weeks of drying, shake the bag a bit and pour the seeds (they’re small and black) into an airtight container.

Garden Log Summary

Ice Queen lettuce grows to about 12 inches wide

Ice Queen is a tasty, easy to grow lettuce that does just fine in the summer heat. In my experience, it’s no more or less prone to pests (the rabbits really like it) or disease than any other lettuce. You can start harvesting it like a loose-leaf lettuce after about 35 days, and it’s ready to pick as a head lettuce by 60 days.

While it stays pretty compact for a couple weeks after it matures, if you let it go past that, the head will unfurl and the lettuce will begin to bolt. Once it bolts, however, it starts to get bitter, so if you’re not going to let it flower and go to seed, I recommend picking it before it bolts too far.

Plant details

• Name: Ice Queen Lettuce (aka: Reine de Glaces)
• Type: Heirloom crisphead (iceberg)
• Days to harvest: 35 (leaf), 60 (heads)
• Size: 12 inches wide, 8 inches tall
• Spacing: 12-18 inches
• Seed source: Pinetree Garden Seeds