EARWIG is often overlooked. Because they are snicky. They come out at night like slugs and snails but the are smart and run away and hide. They hide in similar fashion to slugs in the cracks, under rocks/stones, ...during the day. They eat much bigger holes than flea beetle. Also they start with the parts of the plants close to the ground(like slog/snail) while flea beetles eat the top most leaves. Of all these insects, slugs damage is more severe. A big fat slug can eat a whole seeding in one sitting. Another thing is that flee beetles love peppers and eggplant, tomatillo .... all in the nightshade family. FB damage is only critical when seedlings are very small and not when on the established plant. One more thing: Slugs have chewing/eating pattern similar to caterpillars. The will not usually eat in hole or circular pattern. This post was edited by seysonn on Wed, Nov 6, 13 at 5:53

I've got a half dozen havahart type live animal traps but so far he's not gone near them. I've baited with lettuce, canteloupe, melon rinds, broccoli, and red beets but the bait goes untouched. I've gotten a few rabbits in the trap but none large enough to do any damage in the garden. I pulled up the chewed lettuce heads, used them for bait but it seems he only bites on a plant once, even in the garden, each time its a new plant that got eaten. I had 300 heads of lettuce, after this week I'm down to about 50 tops, and some of them have damage again now. At this time in the season, as the lettuce bolts, I basically just let it go to seed for next years crop. The problem is he's even chewed off the flowering stalks. I added a wire fence around the roof of the shed on one side today, I increased the overhang on the fence and sprayed the lettuce with some pesticide that I hoped would deter his appetite. I left the garden at 7pm to put some tools away, and came back in less than 5 minutes and four heads of lettuce were chewed down to the ground. The part that gets me is that it can eat that fast. I'm 300lbs and can't eat that much that fast. I gave the remaining plants a good shot of Malathion in hopes the odor deters him. I've grown a garden here for 15 years, this is the first year I've had anything get through the fence. I've had insect issues last year, but never a furry critter getting over the fence. I would have fully expected burrowing rather than climbing, so far, he's not even tried to burrow under the fence. This weekends project will be to install a proper gate or door, I poured a threshold at the point of entry so nothing can dig under, now I need to make an easy to walk through gate or door. The way it is now I have to take down a 6' tall upper gate and remove a fence panel to get in. The plan is to make a screen door from 1/4" rat wire which closes against a cement stop at the bottom and is hung from the adjacent fence post with hinges. I never thought a groundhog would be able to scale a 6' fence, but there's no other way in. Maybe I need to electrify the fence next. There has to be more than one of these things, but the only one on the trail cam was huge. I had to give the game cam back the other day, so I don't have the option to keep it up. I just can't figure how something so small can consume so much so fast, and not even leave any scraps on the ground. The eaten heads look like something just took a huge bite out the middle right down to the ground, leaving only the stump and a few outer leaves standing.

Buttercrunch needs at least 8" and then will still grow together somewhat but if you harvest the outer leaves as they grow you can keep them in control. For large Romaine types like Jericho and Batavia types like Nevada I use 12" spacing and for mini Romaine types like Little Gem I use 9" spacing.

A slightly deeper planter would be better, but it's certainly possible to grow them just the way you did. If you were growing these to mature size then the spacing is a bit tight. But with leaf lettuces, it's common to harvest individual leaves periodically like you were doing or to cut them just above the growing point to harvest all at once, aka cut-and-come again technique. I've grown leaf lettuce successfully at a much higher density in containers like those. Of course keeping the soil moist can be work. Red Sails has always been advertised as heat tolerant, but it has been around for 30 years now, so there are probably more "bolt-resistant" varieties available. I'd like to hear about other's experiences with some of the newer ones. I wouldn;t recommend collecting seed from your bolted plants, especially since Red Sails is a hybrid. What I would suggest for next year (or late summer/early fall) is to have a few different sowings, each planted at a different time. Staggering your planting dates every 2 weeks or so is a good practice. It spreads out your harvest and also spreads out your risk. You can also determine the ideal planting times for your situation by doing this. Hope that helps.