Farm Update
 |
| The tomatoes are still hanging on, and we'll have plenty of them in the shares this week! |
What to Expect in This Week's Share
- Choice between snap beans and beets
- Choice between tomatoes and carrots
- Choice between cherry tomatoes and broccoli
- Choice between cabbage, kale, and chard
- Choice between regular salad mix and large leaf salad mix
- Choice between kohlrabi, baby fennel, and onion
- Choice between heirloom tomatoes, frisee, and garlic
Veggie Spotlight: Lettuce
 |
| This lettuce is destined to be salad mix. It is grown close together in rows to make it easy to harvest for the shares. |
Fred first started growing lettuce for the Alma Farmers
Market when he was 16, and ever since then, it has been the main crop he has
grown over his farming career. Back in
our Ohio days, he grew several million dollars’ worth of many different
varieties of lettuce for high-end restaurants, so if he has a specialty,
lettuce is it. Though our farm is very
diversified, lettuce is still one of the main crops of our farm, and it has
been a part of almost every CSA share since we started the farm four years
ago. Our lettuce has been popular with
CSA members and restaurants alike, and most people think of lettuce and salad
as being practically synonymous. But if
you are like most people, you have probably never wondered where lettuce comes
from, or how it ends up on your plate.
Well, I’m all about learning something new every day, so here it
is: everything you never knew you wanted
to know about lettuce!
Lettuce was originally found wild in a large geographical
area from the Mediterranean to Siberia, and it has been used for a very long
time in human history. It has been traced
back definitively to ancient Egypt, where there are clear depictions of the
plants on tombs dating back from 2700-2500 BC.
However, its use likely dates back much farther in human history. Traditionally the lettuce plant was harvested
much more for medicinal purposes and for eating the stems in cooked dishes.
Over time traditional breeders bred the lettuce plant to have greater palatability
(less bitterness), bigger edible portions, and greater heat tolerance to
prevent early bolting. This breeding
work was really accelerated by the Romans (which is where we get the name
Romaine) in the early years AD. For most
of human history lettuce was grown very close to where it was consumed, until
the 1900s when shippers in the US started packing it in ice for transport. Then in the 1950s with the advent of modern
cooling systems, production of lettuce became much more concentrated in California,
where approximately 70% of US lettuce production (and 90% of spring mix
production) is based.
Over the centuries, lettuce has been part of many religious
and cultural traditions. Most of these traditions centered around the healing
properties of lettuce that were thought to ward of many types of diseases. Some
modern day traditions include the use of lettuce as the primary bitter herb in
the Jewish Passover, and the Yazidi people in Iraq (who were recently in the news
after coming under attack from ISIS) believe that the plant should never be
eaten. The actual reason for this is unclear, because the Yazidis’ greater
reliance on oral tradition has meant that that particular information has been
lost to history.
Lettuce has many great nutritional benefits and was used as
a medicine by many early peoples. It is
very high in both Vitamin A and Vitamin K, and provides many other nutrients as
well. When Fred grew lettuce for another farm in Ohio, testing of over 15 varieties showed that the darker green lettuces had the greatest concentration of
nutrients in the leaves, with romaine types coming out on top. If you have ever felt slightly tired after
eating a large salad, it might be due to a mild narcotic substance in the
leaves. This was more pronounced in the
earlier types of lettuce and is much less noticeable in modern lettuce, but it
is notable that the Anglo-Saxons called lettuce “sleepwort” because of its
soporific effect.
At our farm, we grow lettuce in two different ways. The seeds destined to become salad mix are
seeded thickly into the soil in five rows.
They are then watered, cultivated with the tractor, usually hand weeded
once, and then harvested by hand after 4-5 weeks. Our head lettuce, as well as the bags of
large leaf lettuce mix and romaine leaves, come from transplants. We seed them by hand into
plastic flats in the greenhouse. Then
they grow for about 4-5 weeks in the flats, after which they are taken outside
to harden off. During this process, we
set them outside for a few days to get them acclimated to the outdoor
temperature before we transplant them into the field, which results in less
shock when they are actually transplanted.
When we are ready to plant we then spread extra chicken manure pellets
into the row where we will plant and then transplant by hand. After this, we water them with our dripline
irrigation system and cultivate once before the harvest. Harvest is typically done 3-5 weeks after transplanting,
and it is done by hand. In both
production systems we harvest off of younger plants so that the great flavor of
our lettuce is present, but without the harsh bitterness of older leaves.
Hopefully this leaves you (No pun intended… Okay, maybe a
little!) more knowledgeable about this awesome veggie, its role in
history, and how it is grown!
Recipes
 |
| BLT Salad |
Since we technically have one more week of summer, what better way to make the most of it than with this BLT Salad! Since both lettuce and tomatoes feature prominently in the shares this week, you could make a large dinner salad of it.
If you don't dig salads in general, or you are looking to do something a little more unexpected with your lettuce this week, try these 4 Ways to Use Lettuce (Other Than Salad). I didn't know you could do any of these, so I will definitely be trying at least on of these out this week!
No comments:
Post a Comment