Getting the Bitter out of my Lettuce Patch

 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.  The lettuce was already starting to get bitter, almost too bitter for my taste preferences.

But it is not any more.   I'm very excited to report that the shade took the bitter straight out of the lettuce!   And now, a few weeks later, we have the nicest lettuce I've ever grown.  I'm going to plant some more through the summer and see if I can even have nice lettuce in the middle of summer with the addition of shade.

Psalm 121:2, 5, 6 says, "My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth...The Lord is your keeper;  The Lord is your shade at your right hand.  The sun shall not strike you by day, Nor the moon by night.

Isaiah 25:4 says, about Jesus, "For You have been a strength to the poor, A strength to the needy in his distress, A refuge from the storm, A shade from the heat.

 When life gets hard, and bitterness starts to seep into my heart, I start to wilt, just as the lettuce does in the intense heat of summer. Pressure from continued stress can make me ready to quit.  But that is when it is time for me to find some shade and cool down.  

Jesus is my helper and my strength when life is intense.  He is my refuge, my shade from the heat of my life.  When I spend time sheltered in Jesus, His loving care flows into my heart, bitterness falls away and what I do and say sweetens right up. 
   

  Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; 

Blessed is the man  who trusts in Him!  

 Psalm 34:8

Which reminds me of a story I heard recently from a man who provides free wells for thirsty villages in central America.   This time he was drilling for a village way up high on a hill.  The women had to walk 1/2 mile down the hill to a contaminated water source, and then 1/2 mile back up that steep path for every drop of water they used.  The villagers were so excited when the well driller started drilling, but got discouraged as his drill went deeper and deeper without hitting water.  Finally at over 300 feet deep, the drill lost one of it's tools down in the well.  All hope was lost.  But the man who told me the story started to pray and asked God for help, so the villagers could have water.  The villagers started to pray too.  Several days latter the tool was recovered, in answer to prayer, and the well drilling commenced once again.  At around 100 feet deeper, clean sweet water started pouring into the well.  The well was a good well, even if it was deep.  

The villagers said, "The water was even sweeter because of the trial."

And maybe it's that way with me.  The lettuce is even sweeter to me, after years of struggle.  And Jesus is bringing sweetness into my life despite the trials of this year.

Update on July 14:  I should note that all was well until the temperatures started going above 90 degrees.  At that point the lettuce all went to seed.  So my conclusion is that the shade definitely extends the season in our area, but that there is no way I will have fresh lettuce here after the end of June.  I am hoping that I can have a fall crop of lettuce.  I'm going to start the seeds inside, and then take them outside when the temperatures start staying down a little lower, sometime in August.