The Big Salad Bowl |
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Salads are among the first rewards of the spring and early summer garden. Many greens, like spinach, lettuce, and tender brassicas, flourish in the short days, moisture and cool temperatures before the solstice. A colander of lush greens, picked early before the sun has warmed them, and served with a tasty dressing, is a tonic guaranteed to knock the last dregs of winter out of anyone.
Everyone knows lettuce, but it is a crop with few equals in its number of variants. There may be more bean than lettuce cultivars, but there aren't many more. Each year at the farm we try to grow at least a few new varieties, and have had good luck over the past few seasons with New Red Fire Leaf, Red Oak Leaf, and Brun de Hiver.
We use untreated seed from Fedco or Johnny's, usually direct seeded in the soil, but sometimes transplanted. Transplanting lettuce sounds a little unusual but works well, and you can get a harvest more quickly and certainly than with seed sown in the garden bed.
Lettuce grown under cover seems to be more tender and less bitter than that grown in the field, but all lettuce is good when picked in its time and handled gently.
In recent years we have become very fond of Oriental brassicas for salads. "Chinese Cabbage" is a term that covers hundreds of different kinds of greens, all in the same family as cabbage and broccoli, but of almost infinite variety. They have different colors, textures, and shapes, some are hot and peppery, some mild. They can be sown very early, and will bolt before lettuce or spinach as the days grow longer.
Some of my favorite salad brassicas are tatsoi, a dark green vegetable with round leaves that grow in a tight rosette; mizuna, with its spray of spiky leaves and brisk flavor, peppery arugula, and purple Indian mustard.
Some new greens are finding their way into mixed green salads, often called "mesclun". These include mache or corn salad, a tiny plant that is very cold hardy and can be grown all winter; amaranth, claytonia, cress, and purslane. Some vegetables which are usually cooked also make excellent additions to salad if picked very young, these include fennel, spinach, chard, and kale.
To celebrate the bounty and variety of the salad garden, the Belfast Farmer's Market will host 'The Big Salad Bowl' on June 22, 25 & 26. This event will feature a plethora of salad fixings from arugula to 'Zefa Fino' fennel bulbs along with tasty dressing recipes. A large bowl of free salad will be on hand, contributed by our members.
A few days after this, our 2nd Annual Farm Animal Day will take place on Tuesday, June 29. Kids and adults can have an opportunity to see and pet piglets, lambs, donkeys and calves.
At the market for the month of June: Bedding plants, seedlings, perennials, hanging baskets, goat cheese, baked goods, beef, chicken, rabbit and pork, eggs, beet greens, radishes, lettuce, peas, spinach, maple syrup, herbs, tasty condiments and preserves.
The Belfast Farmer's Market is open at Reny's Plaza, Jct Rts. 1 & 3, Tues 2:30 - 5:30, Fri & Sat 9-1. Rain or shine, May through October, under the big green sign.