GardenHead Lettuce variety
Red Cross Lettuce Head Lettuce
✓ In your garden
Red Cross Lettuce is a red butterhead lettuce, ready in about 48 days. Its soft, buttery leaves are made for fresh salads. Lettuce is a cool-season crop — grow it in spring and fall; summer heat turns it bitter and makes it bolt (shoot to seed).
“A soft, buttery lettuce for delicate salads.”
Growing basics — shared by every head lettuce
Red Cross Lettuce grows like any other head lettuce. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Head Lettuce page so it's maintained in one place.
- Sun
- Full Sun
- Spacing (in row)
- 10–12 in
- Row spacing
- 12–18 in
- Planting depth
- 0.25–0.5 in
- Soil pH
- 6–6.8
- Water
- Moderate
What is Red Cross Lettuce good for?
- Fresh saladsThe everyday job. Great
- Sandwiches & wrapsTender — lovely but delicate. Skip it
- Baby / cut leavesBetter grown to a full head. Skip it
- CookingLettuce is a raw green. Skip it
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
What Red Cross Lettuce is known for
Johnny's Selected Seeds describes this as:
- takes the heat
That is the company selling the seed, describing its own product. True, and worth weighing as such.
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Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Red Cross Lettuce in your zone
Zone 6bGreenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around early Jun, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Start seeds indoors
- early Mar – mid Mar
- Toughen up outside
- early Apr – mid Apr
- Move plants outside
- mid Apr – mid Apr
- Plant seeds outside
- mid Mar – early Apr
- Growing
- mid Apr – early Jun
- Picking
- early Jun – mid Jun
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
What to plant near Red Cross Lettuce — and what to keep away
-
CarrotsPractical
Quick lettuce fills the row while slow carrots take their time.
-
TomatoPractical
A tall tomato throws exactly the shade lettuce wants once summer heat makes it flower and turn bitter (bolt).
-
Onions & garlicTraditional
On the classic charts — lettuce's own row lists onions.
The badge is the honesty. Trialed = a published field trial · Practical = a real mechanism · Traditional = companion-chart lore. These pairings hold for every head lettuce.
Pairings compiled from West Virginia University Extension.
Growing Red Cross Lettuce — the things that trip people up
- Lettuce bolts — shoots to seed and turns bitter — in heat. Grow it in the cool of spring and fall, give it afternoon shade in summer, and sow a little every couple of weeks for a steady supply.
- A heading type: it forms one head — harvest the whole plant once it’s full and firm.
Red Cross Lettuce head lettuce at a glance
| Type | Butterhead |
|---|---|
| Days to ripe | 48 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Red |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
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Common questions about Red Cross Lettuce
How long does Red Cross Lettuce take to grow?
About 48 days from sowing. Sow directly in cool weather; for baby leaves you can start cutting even sooner.
Will Red Cross Lettuce bolt in summer?
Lettuce bolts (goes to seed and turns bitter) once it’s hot. Grow it in spring and fall, use afternoon shade in summer, and it stays sweet longer.
What kind of lettuce is Red Cross Lettuce?
A butterhead lettuce — soft and tender.