Crisp Mint romaine type lettuce is a variety that I plant every year. It helps me knock lettuce off my grocery list for many months at a time.
I know we’re not supposed to play favorites, but I have to admit that this lettuce is my favorite.
It provides an abundant harvest, an extended harvest, and it has a nice deep green color that is beautiful.
The name of this lettuce doesn’t have anything to do with mint except for the color. Don’t expect it to have a mint like flavor – nope.
This variety tastes like a nice sweet and crisp lettuce, and that’s what we’re all looking for.
Crisp Mint is an easy grower with a nice mint green color.
Its leaves are covered with dimple-like puckers that give it a distinctive appearance.
The broad and flat leaves are 8 to 12 inches long, and the plants produce very well.
It has a pleasant sweet taste that blends well with other lettuces for salads, and it does just fine on its own in the salad bowl.
I would rank this lettuce as slow to bolt and it stays sweet even with elevated growing temperatures. It scores well on my list of characteristics for best vegetables.
If you harvest the outside leaves as the plant is developing, you’ll have several months of harvest. You cut the outside leaves, and it regenerates new leaves on the main stalk as it grows taller.
This approach minimizes the need to succession plant.
Romaine type lettuces can be harvested in a more traditional manner by taking the whole plant once it has formed a tightly grouped column of leaves.
I don’t favor this approach because it cuts into your yields, and limits the harvest period to just a few weeks.
Crisp Mint is relatively cold hardy and somewhat resistant to bolting.
When warm weather sets in, it will produce so much lettuce that just a few plants will supply all you need for a family.
If you’re growing this variety inside a greenhouse, expect it to start bolting when summer sets in.
This will also make the leaves have a bitter taste.
I don’t mind the bitter taste, but some people object to it. I find it far less bitter than traditional leaf lettuce varieties.