Here is another pic also. Again sorry for it being sideways.

They are making a flower stalk. It's called bolting. You can still eat the leaves, but they will get more bitter with time.

I like to let plants set and disperse seed. I get a bunch of self-sown seedlings the next year that usually grow very well, and give useful produce. To me, it's sort of a gardening adventure. You won't get exactly the same variety, but I don't care. It's fun.

By the way, your plants look nice and healthy. Maybe they could use a bit more Nitrogen. It's really hard to grow iceberg lettuce as well as the commercial growers. The heads almost never form as nice and tight.

This post was edited by lilydude on Sat, Jul 27, 13 at 14:36

Those leaves don't look at all like an iceberg. But the reason they made a stalk is because they've bolted and gone to seed. They probably won't be good to eat and you'll end up pulling them out.

Depending on where you live, you probably planted much too late. Lettuce is a cool weather crop. I'm putting in my fall lettuce today.

Agree that it looks like a bolted leaf lettuce of some kind rather than iceberg. Iceberg often won't form heads unless given very wide spacing and no competition for nutrients and water. Basically it is a waste of garden space IMO when there are so many better varieties of leaf lettuce that do really well.

While the older leaves on this will be bitter and past eating the young top leaves 'might' still be ok.

For future reference once that center stalk begins to rise at all pick ASAP. This has gone far too long.

Dave

PS: please include your location or at least your garden zone in the box provided with your posts. On most questions it can make a big difference in the answers given.

Head lettuce can be extremely finicky. My first -- and last -- attempt was a failure. Most home gardeners stick to exploring the various kinds of leafy greens.

This post was edited by jean001a on Sat, Jul 27, 13 at 16:18

It looks like leaf lettuce that has bolted. You might want to pull out the oxalis (the thing that looks like tiny clover) from your garden before it gets to be a big problem.

The neat thing about leaf lettuce is that you can pull off a few leaves at a time, as needed. With head lettuce, you have to harvest the entire head. But as Jean says, it's a pain growing head lettuce anyway.

You guys! Growing head lettuce isn't all that hard, it just takes more time.

I grow a variety called Summertime. It holds up quite well to the heat if properly grown. I consider it a challenge to get iceberg heads as large as possible.