Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My lettuce seems to grow very well vertically, but not laterally. i.e. the iceberg doesn't 'ball up', and other fancy lettuce grows like a christmas tree until it seeds.

Any suggestions?

When are you planting? Could perhaps be to do with moon cycles or time of year in your area.

We've had similar experiences here at different times with different species.

in a similar vein to your coriander thread, hearting type lettuces are not good in QLD. you need more loose-leafed varieties, and pick them as they grow. Even then, many of mine bolt very quickly depending on the time of year.

Yup, I have never had good heading lettuce in AP yet

We've not had a lot of luck with iceberg, but other varieties are great including semi-heading ones.

Well, that makes me feel better - at least I'm not the only one, and if OBO and Earthbound et al can't grow them, almost nobody can!

On the other hand, I've had great success with mizuna, so I might just stick with that.

I've had mixed results with butter crunch lettuce. Some that are planted at the same time will bolt, while others will make a nice bush. I've had very good results from oak leaf lettuce. It doesn't bolt until it gets too hot.

i have some mad keen permie friends in the se corner who all say it has been too warm to grow lettuce ... tending the lettuce to bolt to seed..

i am jealous you can grow anything.... it is still too wet here(even though i am just up the highway...) and most stuff i want to grow is rotting...

If the lettuce wants to grow tall I'd suggest just keep nipping the top out. The plant should then send out more side shoots, just don't let it flower.
Also if the plant is in a shadey position it may be stretching for sunlight- results is weak leggy growth.

We get lots of tall lettuce too. I always figured it was just our climate (gets too hot too much.)
I also suspect that growing perfect heads of lettuce may be a trick of getting the best seeds. The seed packets from the lawn and garden center are probably not going to yield a line of perfect heads the way the costly seeds that many of the truck farms are going to. I'm not sure but I think the firm head lettuces are something best grown in a place with a fairly long cool but not freezing season. I generally stick with lots of loose leaf of some of the loosely heading varieties and do well even if some of the plats are quite tall, still good till they flower. Tree lettuce anyone?

I am over growing lettuce heads as they need to be used with in a day ...
I prefer to grow loose leaf ones and then just pick what is needed for the meal,
....so always in perfect condition.

Hmm... I was hoping to grow a lot of iceberg style lettuce in my still to be completed second system.

You have all made me very sad

meh, Iceberg may be tasty and crunchy, but that's all it is. It has almost no nutritionaly value... go one of the other varieties, they taste better, have the crunch, are better for you and you can gradually havest them leaf by leaf as required over a 2 month period before they go to seed if you're lucky.
Any stress at all on a lettuce I have found, makes it sad, then fixing the conditions makes it bolt out of fear of it happening again.
Be gentle, and consistant

My romaine starting growing tall till I moved it outside where it got better light. The leaves got much wider & greener.