Help growing what we will eat: Iceberg or an alternative crisphead lettuce

My family will only eat a small range of vegetables and Iceberg is one of them.
Talking with a market gardener friend, it might be too warm to grow  in our zone 6 spring, and they may be too fussy entirely.
I am not ruling them out, but I do want to know what to expect.
I have some loose leaf lettuce planted in half barrels ,under cover, and I plan on replacing them with cumber and zucchini when they bolt.
Depending on what I hear here, I will start Iceberg lettuce for the fall, grow them entirely indoors or maybe not at all.

Have your people every tried "Butter lettuce"? I'm not sure it's quite as crispy or anemic as iceberg, but my friend who adores Iceberg, grows Tom Thumb Butter lettuce. Tom Thumb is a really small one - sort of one head/person - but the seeds I was given for larger ones didn't germinate and I haven't looked for others.

While I haven't tried iceberg, my experience with homegrown lettuce is that it's very different from store bought. For example, my homegrown romaine is nothing like store bought, it's loose and not particularly crisp. I second trying butter lettuce, we love it.

I like the sound of that.
Buttery is a good trade for crispy!


I fear growing Iceberg lettuce will be like baking white bread-no matter how close I get, it won't match store bought AND it will be pain in my butt.

But growing food for people is the best kind of growing, and even if my immediate family doesn't care for it, someone might.
Greens are said to be one of the easiest and most profitable things to grow, so grow them I shall.

My kids are picky about lettuce. The one I can reliably grow at home which they’ll eat is “salad bowl” which is a very mild, light green heirloom variety that can have a bit of crunch if well-watered.

We have so many lettuce varieties i couldn't even suggest any. Why not try growing 10 different types and mix them together? Making it a salad mix?

maybe this isn't entirely for salad eating but to me the lettuce in the salad is only 1/4 of the dish.

-Homemade salad dressing
-sauerkraut
-sprouted seeds
-shredded carrot
-shredded beets
-feta cheese
-herbs
-and whatever else can be added.

let sit for 30minutes-1 hour. Hot damn i don't know how this can be resisted.

Great replies!
Poking around Permies, I saw where someone uses Napa cabbage in place of Iceberg.
I might be hard sell at my house, but certainly worth a try.

William Bronson wrote: Poking around Permies, I saw where someone uses Napa cabbage in place of Iceberg.
I might be hard sell at my house, but certainly worth a try.

You could try telling them that my goose, Bella, absolutely adores Napa cabbage, and my gander Beetle is happy to eat it also. If it's good enough for my adorable geese, they could at least try it!
OT full story: they're named after the two shoulder stars in the Orion Constellation, Bellatrix and Betelgeuse. Bella was a rescue and the rescue people asked me to take Beetle as well, as an unrelated gosling that was also looking to be rehomed. They're both very happy in my field, but extra happy if I show up with Napa Cabbage.

Cabbage will provide that crunch that your family seems to like. I would suggest starting out with adding some very finely sliced cabbage to a salad with store bought iceberg or something like that. Transitioning has helps our family in some ways.

As far as Jordon's suggestions, cabbage would be an excellent option for something that is sitting in a dressing for a length of time. Most lettuces will get pretty soggy at that point. I'm sure some like that but that doesn't sound like what your family is looking for.

Anyway, good luck.

There's a good chance I was the one suggesting the Napa cabbage.   We still do that.  It also has the advantage of not browning after you slice it and makes a good cooked vegetable too.  Generally we cook the stalks and eat the leafy bits in salad.

My experience in Thailand made is that all head Lettuces start bolting instead of forming heads but almost all open Lettuces are a winner.
We mix with mustard greens and kale which is obviously too "tasty" for your kids.

Beetroot leaves, Chards are also a good add for the warmer climates

You can also trick the Kids with a mashed tomato/cheese/ham/salami dressing on the laves and then throw lots of Croutons in.
You cant stop eating by chasing the croutons...

The Tomato/Cheese/Ham/Salami dressing is created by accident, as we left our grocery too long in the sun.
The Cheese was molten and I tried to rescue it as a culinary deep flyer.

I poured the cheese over the lettuce and then chopped ham and salami in and mixed lots of croutons under.  
Last I gave it a shot of olive oil and I was surprised about the firework of different tastes it created in my mouth.

(My wife called it a detonated Pizza)

William Bronson wrote:I like the sound of that.
Buttery is a good trade for crispy!


I fear growing Iceberg lettuce will be like baking white bread-no matter how close I get, it won't match store bought AND it will be pain in my butt.

But growing food for people is the best kind of growing, and even if my immediate family doesn't care for it, someone might.
Greens are said to be one of the easiest and most profitable things to grow, so grow them I shall.

This entirely.  If you find success, please update this thread.  Few things can compete with a few pieces of iceberg on top of a burger, but butter lettuce is a winner, if you can beat the slugs to it!


You've inspired me to put my grow light setup to good use after warm season annuals make their way outside, we'll see if I can get success from my multitude of 5 year old lettuce seeds.

Territorial and Baker Creek have previously had a handful of varieties including the word "crisp" in them, like Crisp Mint and stuff, there may be success there.

Here's how I've had success getting my iceberg lettuce loving kids to eat different greens (and like it!):

We planted a mix of a dozen kinds of greens, super close together, so it was a solid mat of different lettuces and they were regularly watered with a drip hose. In my cool climate, this kept them small and sweet and crisp for a long time. There were plenty of kinds for them to try so if they didn't like one, they could take a bowl out to the garden and pick the leaves they did like. Like someone else said, fresh from the garden is worlds away from the bagged stuff at the store.

We also did a controlled planting of three varieties and they were my testers. We had leaves from there different varieties in bowls labeled A, B, and C and they had to taste them and rate them on flavor, texture, appearance, etc and then we saw which one was the overall winner. My kids like doing anything they see as a science experiment.

They were convinced they hated cabbage until I got some Napa cabbage and shredded it super thin. Shredded like that,It looks like and has the texture of iceberg lettuce. It is a very mild tasting cabbage. I didn't even try to trick them. I made a bowl like this to put on my burger and we didn't have any iceberg lettuce and they were eating it before I got to the table. I was like, "I thought you didn't like cabbage?!" And they all said, "What cabbage?" "The cabbage you are shoveling into your mouths!" "This is cabbage?!"

I got them eating stronger tasting greens like kale by first blending it into a very fruity smoothie that they love. When we finally graduated to eating it in a salad, we cut it into very fine ribbons and had lots of things they like with it. Now it's their favorite salad.

My next experiment on my kids will to have each of them grow their own tray of sprouts/microgreens. We will do this next winter inside. I'm thinking that they will find it fun to eat the itty bitty plants as they are often sweet and crunchy.