Freckles lettuce days to maturity

The "days to maturity" which is often quoted on packets of seed is usually little more than an arbitrary number.  I have seen Freckles lettuce listed anywhere from 50 to 90 days, which is rather unhelpful.  I used to find it very difficult to plan when to plant things, so I keep records myself.

Below are the dates of when I planted seed of freckles lettuce this year, when the seed germinated, and when we began harvest.  If I keep any of these plants to go to seed I may try to remember to include date of flowering and when the seed is ripe, but who knows what the future brings.

Being in Australia the dates are written in the format of Day/Month/Year.

Freckles Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Planted                       23/10/2016                  day 0
Germinated                 28/10/2016                  day 5
Started harvesting        03/12/2016                 day 41
Seeds ready                17/02/2017                 

I probably could have started harvesting smaller leaves a few weeks earlier or larger leaves a few weeks later if I wanted.  Had I planted the lettuce seeds in different weather, or in different soil, or with more or less sunlight, or closer to nodulating legumes, or a bunch of other things, these days to maturity would be slightly different, but this is an indication of how Freckles lettuce actually performed for me this year.

For some reason all of the lettuce in my garden went bitter pretty quickly this year.  I am growing 4 different varieties this year, all of which were planted on the same day, and none of them performed very well.  I think it may be due to heat or abrupt change in weather.  I planted them later than I would have liked.  Freckles is the only one which is not currently flowering, some individual plants are not bitter but most are. 

For a full list of vegetable days to maturity please click here.

Freckles Lettuce