Probably not too late for bush beans.

I pulled my lettuce already and ate it as it wanted to bolt. I planted golden beets and white turnips in its place.

How does one know when lettuce is about to bolt?

Did you plant the beets from seed? My wife likes beets but I have yet to learn to like them.

You can tell by looking at them when the lettuce heads are ready.

Beets from seed are very easy, don't waste your money on those nursery transplant beet seedlings. Just follow directions. Go along, one seed at a time in a row. The seeds are a good size so you can do that easily. Just very lightly cover with soil.

I just keep picking leaves until they start to taste bitter. I was surprised last summer when I picked some leaves off a lettuce just beginning to bolt that the leaves were still good. It wasn't until the lettuce was over 2 ft tall that the leaves got bitter.
Now is a good time to plant rutabaga in the space left by your lettuce.

To keep lettuce - keep it watered with cold water on the roots. The water in your irrigation lines will be warm.

Put some shade over it.

How much help will this be? Maybe not a lot, it depends on the variety. [That leaf lettuce on the left looks like New Red Fire, it holds well.]

I've found my lettuce is lasting longer when it's grown all bunched together with each other and viying a little with it's neighbour for nutrients. (Back right in photo, Bok Choy, front left) Plus, they constantly are keeping each others feet cool, with no earth exposed. If it doesn't get ridiculously hot in the next week or so (and I don't think it will here) I'm going to try a romaine I bought and see if, grown again all bunched up, I can keep getting salads during mid summer.
I am letting an assortment of these spring mixes and Muesli Mix go to seed just at the back of the box. I don't know if the seed I get from them will produce....has anyone had a problem with their own seed from these Spring lettuce mixes?

So far the lettuce crops (romaine) are probably the healthiest plants in my garden with all the moisture we've been experiencing. I've been harvesting the outer leaves as we've needed them. Still tender and tasty. I didn't realize there was a finite life to the heads. So far so good. I'll have to think of a replacement crop when they do have to be removed.

Thanks, be well..............elliot

This post was edited by michelliot on Fri, Jun 21, 13 at 9:28

In zone 6 there's still time to plant: beans, summer squash, turnips, rutabagas, kale, collards, beets, carrots, Asian radishes, komatsuma, cucumbers.

In anticipation of the warm weather approaching this weekend, I decided to harvest the remaining lettuce while it was still good and in its place planted two rows of beets and three rows of Blue Lake bush beans.

Now I just have to think of a quick and dirty way to trellis the beans in my raised beds. In the containers that I am growing my other beans, I made a teepee out of bamboo sticks but I think it was a bad idea because they are not really growing up the bamboo sticks, but more like bunching in a confined space within the imaginary canopy of the teepee.

Bush beans don't need a trellis. They don't climb. Plant them close together and the plants support themselves.

It is late to plant beets unless you grow them just for leaves.

Dave

Dave, thanks for the info on the trellis. I planted the beets yesterday, should I just plant more beans over the beets and pull the beet seedlings out when they emerge? This way that whole bed will be bush beans, with a row of carrots and a row of dill on the perimeters of the bed.