My lettuce is doing great this year, even though the temperatures have been steadily warm. This is unusual, because lettuce doesn't like our warm, inland Northwest temperatures, and usually quickly bolts. The next issue is that my lettuce starts out tasting nice, but quickly turns bitter. And then if it doesn't go to seed, it really doesn't matter, because I don't like strong tasting lettuce, and it usually doesn't get picked. I heard that sweetness might be effected by the amount of water the lettuce gets, so I tried keeping the lettuce very moist. But that only attracted more slugs, and the lettuce still got quite bitter. But this spring I saw something that gave me an idea. Could it be that shade might help keep out the bitterness and keep the lettuce from bolting? I decided to give it a try. We pounded in some stakes, strung up some string, then used clothes pins to hold some old sheets up above my beautiful lettuce patch. Th