Grand Rapids Lettuce Seeds

In our never-ending pursuit to recover the long-lost history of agriculture in the Great Lakes region, we fortunately stumbled upon “Grand Rapids” lettuce, which tells a story of the region that began over 100 years ago. Bred in the late 1800’s by Eugene Davis, known as the "father of forced lettuce,” Grand Rapids lettuce became the leading greenhouse-grown winter lettuce in the Grand Rapids, MI area. By the turn of the 20th century, these remarkably expansive greenhouses (over 150,000 square feet of them) were supplying millions of pounds of winter lettuce to the people of the Great Lakes region. Grand Rapids lettuce is bright green, with wavy, frilled leaves. If left to mature it forms a head of loose leaves that reach 7 - 8” tall. It is very vigorous and bolt tolerant. We have been growing it as cut-and-come-again baby greens in our unheated hoophouse where, when sown by September 1st, it provides non-bitter lettuce through fall, winter and all the way until the end of April! We hav