Lettuce
In Almería's Levante, around Pulpí and the Bajo Almanzora, open-field lettuce makes the most of the cool months: regular rows delivering crisp leaves in the depths of winter.
Lettuce draws another face of Almería's horticulture: not the coastal greenhouses, but large open-air plots in the Levante. Agricultural documents cite the Bajo Almanzora among Andalusia's production areas, IFAPA works in Pulpí on the health of lettuce soils and, in Cuevas del Almanzora, municipal statistics confirm a sizeable irrigated area devoted to this leaf.
The calendar leans on the coolness of autumn, winter and spring: seedlings are set in regular lines, irrigated with precision, and the heads are cut when they reach the size and firmness sought. Iceberg, romaine or baby leaves do not serve the same markets, but they share one demand — keeping the crunch from plot to table. Rotations, biosolarisation and integrated production are part of how these soils are kept healthy.
In midwinter, when the cold halts the market gardens of northern Europe, this corner of the province keeps on cutting salad. The Levante needs no slogans: its calendar speaks for it.
Varieties
- Iceberg
- Romaine
- Baby leaf
Season
Cool geometry in the Bajo Almanzora
The Levante is the opposite of the covered coastline: open fields, large plots, and a geometry of parallel lines where lettuces sit as compact rosettes on bare earth. In the depths of winter, while northern Europe rests, this pale-green chessboard is still hard at work.
Soil first, leaf second
Here the crop is decided before planting: between cycles, the soils are kept healthy through rotations, biosolarisation and integrated production, since they carry lettuce from October to May. The rest is a matter of rhythm — successive plantings staggered so cutting can run all winter, with the cool air as the leaf's best ally.
