Wrong Salad, When a Lettuce is not a Lettuce

I have been reading things about salads that really bother me the past couple of weeks. Specifically I see lists of favorite "lettuces" and the list always seems to include arugula, mache and frisee. All wonderful salad greens but not a single one of them is a member of the lettuce family,  Lactuca sativa.
Here is one example of a misinformed Food writer Twinkle's Kitchen  and another from Heifer International (whom you would think would know better)

3 kinds of Lettuce, leaf, bibb and romaine

Mach (aka corn salad, Lewiston cornsalad, lamb's lettuce, fetticus, field salad, mâche, feldsalat, nut lettuce and rapunzel.) is Valerianella locusta, a completely different genus than lettuce. It is a nice low growing green that is one of the first greens to come up in our yards and garden in the late winter/early spring. It is jammed packed with a lot of nutrients. But it ain't lettuce, despite some of the common names implying such.

Frisee is an endive which hails from the chicory family and a gain not a lettuce, though it is green, leafy and generally eaten raw in salads

Arugula, Eruca sativa (aka rocket, roquette) is another non lettuce salad green. Arugula is a brassica and is closely related to mustard, cabbage, and broccoli. We grow a lot of arugula on our farm and it is one of our all tome favorite salad greens (and we grow some of the best arugula on the planet, why? I don't know but we seem to have an affinity for the stuff)

Arugula

If food writers, Chefs and other culinary celebs want to write about lettuce I suggest they do some homework and write about lettuce and not other salad greens. There are over 400 different varieties of lettuce grown these days (though most people only know about leaf, iceberg, romaine and bibb). Some of my favorites include the lollos, an Italian frilly bibb like lettuce that is a stunning red and green, Amish deer tongue that looks like a cross between bibb and romaine but is neither. Cracoviensis, one of the most ancient lettuces and likely one of the parents of romaine.

These people do are doing the public a disservice by calling things that are not lettuce, lettuce. it is much like an automotive writer calling a pick-up truck a sedan, they two are not the same, though both do have similarities. it doe show me how disconnected people are from the food they eat when supposed experts get such simple things wrong. And when people read what these folks write they assume the "experts" are correct. Sadly with food and garden writing all too often the "experts" are dead wrong and and that is no good for the salad eating public and it is truly vexing to us lettuce and salad green growers who have to explain over and over again to our customers who read and/or hear this misinformation  that arugula, et. al. are not lettuces at all, though they are lovely salad greens in their own right.

Food writers, Chefs and the rest of you salad experts try to get this right from now on. Go out and learn about the wonderful world of lettuces and quit calling all salad greens lettuce. Thank you in advance

Winter Farm Fun

I had a spring mix order to fill for tomorrow so that meant going up to the salad house and seeing what there was to cut. So Eugene and I went up to see what's what and among other things, found buried in the area that is supposed to have onion seedlings a deer leg. Nice.


So he moved the leg out of the garden and we proceeded on to the salad house, went inside and found it nice and warm-a good 10 degrees warmer than outside. Nice conditions for the arugula, lettuces, mizuna, mustard and weeds growing in there.

We keep row covers on everything to keep the risk of frost damage down and so far this winter it has worked well. Though, in past winters, even with row cover and gallon milk jugs acting as heat sinks, we have had major damage to the crops. But not this year and it has been real nice to be able to eat fresh greens in deep winter. But using row covers means we have to remove them to work the beds

and That is exactly what Eugene is doing here, removing the cover over the arugula and mustard bed. And you can see the beds beyond him and next to him have no covers over them because I took those off so I could cut greens.


While I cut Eugene hoed. Even in winter we have to do some weeding. But the weeds and crops grow slowly so it is relatively easy to keep up with them. This arugula/mustard bed was not too bad and the soil was dry enough to work


But this lettuce bed to the south of the arugula/mustard bed was quite wet and hard to hoe. But it has to be done before these weeds all flower and go to seed


and you can see already some of the winter hardy weeds are beginning to flower. That is because in the hoop houses it is already late Feb/early March.

So for about 30 minutes we hoed weeds and cut salad. I harvested a pound of spring mix in that time. In warmer months I would have easily harvested 15 pounds in a half hour of cutting and within 10 days the cut beds would have grown back. This time of year it takes about 8 weeks for the greens to grow back. though this will change in a matter of days, by mid month the crops in the hoop houses will have broken dormancy and will start growing again.


About the time we were all done with work in the hoop house and were debating whether or not we should call it quits or not (there was a little bit of hoeing that could have been done) betty makes the decision for us by appearing outside the hoop house-we heard a noise and the next thing we see black paws on the side of the house. Betty had escaped from the fenced back yard. how? We do not know.


So we leave the hoop house taking our harvest and tools with us and see what Betty is up to.


Betty is hunting mice because she remembered that yesterday she caught her first vole right out side this hoop house and she hoped to get more (and she will in the fullness of time). So We let her poke around the perimeter of the hoop house for a bit than eventually went back to the hiuse. okay Betty and Eugene went to the house and I went to the store to bagged the Spring Mix for tomorrow's order.

Fishin'

Yesterday evening we decided to go fishing based upon watching lots of fish in the pond hitting on anything we threw into the pond including grasshoppers, dessicated grubs, spit and clover flowers.

We had old bait-grubs Eugene got the last time he dug potatoes-that were pretty dessicated. Too dessicated to put on a hook. I caught several grashoppers and Eugene put them on the hook and he got some decent hits from the grasshoppers. But it wasn't until I found a single grub under some particle board by our fire pit that we started catching fish. On this one grub Eugene caught 4 pan sized fish, 1 was tossed back into the pond and one got away at the last second, leaving us with two for dinner. We started thinking about this grub as the magic grub.

We have lived at this farm for 3 years and we have never eaten any fish out of the pond. For a long time we decided the pond was too polluted since a lot of the water in it comes from run off from the road and neighboring fields. But we got to thinking about other places we have fished and eaten the catch and how those bodies of water are likely more polluted than our pond. Over the three years we have been here lots of plants have grown up around the pond which are filtering the water and removing a lot of toxins. We have also allowed grasses and sedges to grow where the water comes off the road so that the water hits a 500' natural filtration system before entering the pond. Now that I think about it the pond may have better drinking water than the well.

So long story short, we decided last night to eat some of the fish we caught and they were good.

Catching them was extra fun because a bull frog decided the bobber Eugene was using had to be prey and would go after the thing and try to swallow it (this frog had a rather large mouth but not large enough to the bobber). We found that while frogs can learn but have short term memory loss-it stopped hitting on the bobber after it tried to eat it something like 10 times in a row but after not seeing the bobber for 5 minutes would forget and hit on it again several times before ignoring it.

After having fun with the frog for a bit we got back to fishing using the magic grub. Eugene tossed a line in and within 30 seconds had a fish on the line. He played the fish for a couple of minutes and than landed it. The fish was well hooked but did not get the grub. We put the fish on the bank (we had not planned on keeping any of the fish so did not have a bucket or a stringer to keep the fish we caught in some sort of sane way) which amazed the dogs. Nate could not keep his attention away from the fish on the ground. I do not think he had ever seen a fish just lying there. And he figured out this was potentially food so I had to keep him from picking up the fish and carrying it away. A couple of minutes later Eugene caught another fish and decided to call it a night and I picked up the two fish and carried them up to the house and put them in the kitchen sink where they could not get into trouble flopping about.



Than I put newspaper on the table on the deck and on top of the papers a large cutting board. Eventually, Eugene came up from the pond and prepped the fish while the dogs and Storca mingled all excited that Eugene was killing non vegetables on the deck.

He cut off the heads, gutted and scaled the fish and than sent them inside for me to wash and cook. I opted to bread them and than bake them. I had breading left over from making jalapeno poppers last night and it was nothing to make a milk and egg wash. So I preheated the oven to 350˚F, rinsed the fish dipped them in eggwash and than breading and baked them for 20 minutes. Served them with an arugula salad and basmati rice and it was a delicious meal.



We will be eating more of our fish in the future. Who knows maybe we will sell some eventually as well.

Storca waiting for some fish guts (which he did not get)

Hot Time In the Garden

It is not yet the solstice and already the weather has gotten HOT. After a long cool wet spring we have suddenly changed to hot humid conditions. Yuck.

I hate working in high heat. I have gotten heat stroke before and since than I do not do well with work if the temps get into the high 80's. So that means I don't do heavy work outside past noon or before 6pm. Eugene will and sometimes gets cranky with me for not going out into the hot noonday sun. I just remind him if I do there is a good likelihood that I will end up in the hospital and be useless for any kind of work for weeks or months. Oh and that he is nuts for working mid day when it is so hot.

Though I might not like the heat the summer crops do and the garden is thriving, especially after the 3+ inches of rain we got between Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday evening I helped Eugene put up pea fencing and noted that the garlic scape are ready to harvest on the Hardy German White garlic (and I did get in one bed of scapes so we now have them), the D'Avignon radishes are ready to pick, we have medium sized peas on the English pea plants and lots of flowers on the first planting of Snow and Snap Peas. The yellow beets look wonderful and next week I will be thinning them out so will have baby beet greens.

The strawberries are in full roar-we are getting around 15 pints a day from the 300' of berries that are producing and the strawberries we put in this year are desperately trying to reproduce by putting out runners and flowers. I dutifully pick off both. I will let them go to flower in about 3 weeks but since these are day neutral berries I will continue to take off the runners. By late July we should have double the output in berries and likely will be able to drop the price a little bit.

I will close here as it is almost 6am and the sun is just coming up enough so I can see to harvest leafy greens such as spinach, arugula and baby lettuce before it gets too hot today to do anything.

March Winter Market

Eugene selling produce to happy shoppers

We did a farmers market last Saturday, March 15, the Ides of March. Fortunately no ancient Roman rulers were dispatched at the market.

It was the quietest of the winter markets despite the weather being almost decent. It was a bit below freezing with a thick fog but compared to the heavy snows and very cold, windy weather the other winter markets have had, this was almost nice. But despite the nearly decent weather there was still the fact that Miami University had just started Spring Break and that tends to drain a large percentage of the population of Oxford.

Pia Terranova Selling her incredible artisan breads to hoards of eager customers

That said, we were able to sell a lot of food and made nearly as much as the February market even though we had fewer items to sell. Unlike the last market, we had almost no greens for this market because the voles helped themselves to the spinach under row cover and most of the other greens we have been picking over winter have decided it is spring in the hoop houses and have gone to seed. The winter spring mix was at it's end. We did get several pounds of it for market but that was the last cutting of that bed. Pity, as that also means we go without salad for a bit. We harvested twice as many leeks as the Feb market and sold all but 5 and we had scallions which we did not have at any of the other winter markets.

Seth Filbrun selling organic and pastured meat to a steady line of people

I have been impressed with all the vendors this market brings out in the winter. There are 4 of us growing and selling produce, 2 bread makers, 1 meat seller, 2 soap makers, a potter, a cheese maker and a couple of folks selling a hodgepodge of stuff from eggs to cat toys. There was even a goat in attendance (a kid really). I believe there were ten stalls at this last market. We have a group that is getting good at having things to sell all winter long. This is especially tricky for us produce growers with out using heated greenhouses, which is very expensive. But we have 2 farms, us and Locust Run/Harv Roehling that are very good at season extension and winter growing.

The next, and last, winter market should have more people and a lot more greens as we have been planting a lot of head lettuce (something like 8 different heirlooms), arugula, spinach and spring mix along with radishes and scallions for April. We may also have asparagus and chives, ready to go by than. After that market we start our regular season two weeks later on May 3rd.

Saturday Sales in Winter

Yesterday we had a great market day. I had sent out an email announcing we have a lot of food to sell and three people took advantage of the opportunity. Sold almost $200 worth of produce and chicken. Cleared out a lot of space in the fridge in the store.

One of the people getting food is an old friend I had not seen for several years named Frank. I know him from working at Di Paolo's. Not that we ever worked there at the same time, he came after I left. Now he's the chef for the president of Miami University. Look's like many of us Di Paolo alums are doing well for ourselves. Frank tells me that Pres. Hodge is taking Miami in a green direction. Especially where food is concerned. this explains why suddenly Miami's food service is sourcing as much local food as they can find. Unfortunately their protocol does not allow the various chefs and cooks to buy directly from us farmers at the farmers market or directly in other ways without special exemptions. Oh well, they are just getting into this and I am sure protocols will change to fit the situation.

Another person (people, actually) came over from Fairborn to get food. They loaded up on a scad of produce and a few chickens. the other sale was to the Streits, the folks who supply us with raw milk.

It was nice to sell some stuff and make a bit of money during the off season. Hopefully we can get more business in the future during the winter but it will take some education on our part and flexibility on the part of the locavores.

You see, winter growing is tricky. Most crops do not want to grow in the cold dark season but we have our ways of getting them to respond, usually. But if there is too much cloud cover or it is frigid for too many days things will not grow at all and that means nothing to harvest. Granted we do have things store in the root cellar (i.e. the barn and store). The tricky items are the leafy greens like arugula, kale, lettuce, etc.. But if they decide to do nothing between mid December and early February we still have squash, taters, onions, garlic, dried herbs, parsnips, leeks, etc.. ready to sell and eat.

Meteorological Winter

The Weather-dudes tell us that today is the first day of Meteorological winter. They might well be right, the pond froze over for the first time and the soil is beginning to freeze meaning the last of the roots need to come out of the ground and be stored away in buckets of damp sand for later use or sale.

Two days ago we pulled up all the remaining carrots, 3 50' x 4' beds. Pulled what was left of the Lutz's Greenleaf beet, pulled many rutabagas, radishes, harvested the last of the zucchini, green peppers and cherry tomatoes. The hoop houses and row covers were not enough protection for those tender crops so we took what we could find and will move the houses off of them today or tomorrow and put one over the kale and leeks, another over lettuce and the third over spring mix and arugula. Eventually one of the 100' houses will be moved over 2 beds of strawberries so we can get them producing by mid April.

Winter is not so quiet on the farm

Our Season So far

Despite the drought, we have had a good growing season. Not everything has grown well but most of our crops have done well for us this year. Roots have not been all that great for us. The carrots have been ravaged by carrot maggots and we have lost about 1/2 the crop. Beets have been hit and miss all summer. We have generally had a few but they have rarely been great beets. Some kinds of radishes have done exceptionally, other types have barely made roots. Onions, garlic, leeks and scallions, on the other hand, have done very well for us this summer (and will continue on into fall and winter).

Kale has been spectacular, though lately it has not been growing well. The chard was doing well until early August when it got some fungus that looks like black pepper has been sprinkled all over the leaves before the leaves turn brown and rot. The leafy cool weather greens did well in spring and we have had arugula since early August. Who knew arugula will grow well in hot dry conditions with no irrigation? Annual herbs have done especially well. We planted a lot of basil this year and all of it has produced abundantly. Parsley has also done well, though we had some major germination problems this spring so only have 12 plants. Dill has been a surprise. Eugene planted some in early summer and it got forgotten until late August so it went to seed all on its' own and has done a super job of thickly reseeding itself making for a gorgeous bed of cutting dill. Cilantro has been real hit and miss. It hates hot dry conditions so has not grown very well most of the season, that should change in a few weeks since fall has now arrived.

Winter squashes have done well but by mid summer the summer squashes had begun to give up on life. Same with the cucumbers, we had great cukes early but the main season cukes were hit and miss. Probably because we were growing several new types and did not know what we were doing with them. Melons were decent. Not terribly prolific, well, they were but so were the voles early on. The voles damaged at least 75% of the early melons. But Eugene and the dogs got on the ball and got good control of the varmints so we got many cantaloupes, Winter squashes have done well though, by mid summer the summer squashes had begun to give up on life. Same with the cucumbers, we had great cukes early but the main season cukes, charantais melons and watermelons all through August and September.

Corn was another disappointment. We rarely do good sweet corn. It is very hard to get clean well filled ears producing it organically. We do not use treated seed so we cannot plant until the soil is at least 60˚F which this year was mid May, well after they rains had left. So from the get go we had some serious issues with the sweet corn. What we ended up with was basically crappy corn. About 10% was sellable another 15% we froze for winter and the rest was composted. I don't know if we will continue to grow sweet corn. In theory, we need it for the farm stand, though our sales were not horribly impacted by not having much corn this year and I believe that we can get our customers not to expect sweet corn but to look forward to over 100 other produce items we grow at the store. For all the time and cost put into growing sweet corn it is one of our least lucrative crops. But I am positive Eugene will hanker to plant sweet corn next year and so it will be planted.

The nightshades-tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, potatoes have all done quite well. I have noticed these crops tend to do much better in dry conditions than wet. Last year we harvested, maybe, 200 peppers the entire season and most went into the freezer and were not sold. This year we have already harvested close to a thousand sweet peppers and the season is far from over. The hot peppers have loved the hot dry conditions and have been extra prolific. Tomatoes would have liked a bit more rain, I think, but overall they did well, though it seems the season was a bit short as after this week we will likely not have any tomatoes and I noticed at market this week very few other farms still have 'maters. Eggplants have done better for us in the past but this was a good year for them, no the less.

The strawberries have been a real workhorse all season. Early and mid September was not a great time for the berries but other than that they have produced high quality fruit. The raspberries have been a disappointment. Between the Easter freeze, birds and Japanese beetles we have not gotten a good harvest from either the Latham which produce one time or the heritage that produce spring and fall. The berries we have managed to harvest have been excellent, just not at all plentiful.

Now that it is autumn we will be harvesting spring mix and lettuces soon. Hopefully, we will get some rainy weather this fall, though I am not counting on it. Lettuce, especially, likes rainy conditions. Thankfully we have a drip irrigation system and we know how to use it so the leafy greens will grow well enough for us.