Sorry, Salad Lovers: We May Have No Mesclun Mix (For Two Weeks)

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GotGarlic

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The system that delivers fresh salad greens like clockwork to the nation's grocery stores is breaking down slightly. In about three weeks, consumers may get a reminder of two things. First, vegetables really are fragile living things, and most of them have to survive outdoors. Second, we depend to a remarkable degree on just a few places to grow them.

Due to wet weather in southern Arizona, where most of America's salad greens are grown during the winter, mildew has afflicted the plants and they have been pulled from the fields, and the market.

Meanwhile, wet weather in the Central Valley of California, where much of the summer salad greens are grown, has delayed planting.

With the weird heat we've been having, my garden salad greens are starting to bolt and become bitter. I may be looking to a local company that grows salad greens in a greenhouse hydroponically for a couple of weeks. Or see if I can find some seeds.

Sorry, Salad Lovers: We May Have No Mesclun Mix (For Two Weeks) : The Salt : NPR
 
We got a Burpee catalog within the last week or so and it has mixed lettuce seed packets. It also has a mixed lettuce high-heat tolerance packet I was thinking about getting and trying in a large built-in planter that's shaded by a big oak tree
 
We got a Burpee catalog within the last week or so and it has mixed lettuce seed packets. It also has a mixed lettuce high-heat tolerance packet I was thinking about getting and trying in a large built-in planter that's shaded by a big oak tree
Good to know about the high-heat tolerant seeds, thanks! I wonder if our local feed and seed store might have them. I have some space in the yard that is shaded by my neighbor's trees. Planting mixed lettuce with impatiens for the summer would be really pretty.
 
I don't like salads that are made with a Mesclun mix!

All those tender little leaves tend to cling to my teeth and there's no crunch factor at all. Ick. It seems that most restaurant salads these days are now made with it. I don't like iceberg lettuce for salads either. At home we always make our salads with Romaine hearts and sometimes Red Leaf.
 
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I don't like salads that are made with a Mesclun mix!

All those tender little leaves tend to cling to my teeth and there's no crunch factor at all. Ick. It seems that most restaurant salads these days are now made with it. I don't like iceberg lettuce for salads either. At home we always make our salads with Romaine hearts and sometimes Red Leaf.
It's not my favorite, either, although DH likes it, so sometimes I grow it and include it in a salad that is primarily romaine. The lettuces I have in the garden are romaine, green leaf and red sails. I also have a terra cotta planter that I plant mesclun mix into.

When I buy lettuce, its the three-pack of romaine hearts.
 
I like a mix, Mesclun, Ice berg, Baby spinach, arugula. Im not crazy about romaine, too stemmy for me. Although , I do enjoy it grilled with balsamic, and Jacques Pepin makes a pasta dish which includes cooked romaine lettuce ( I never would have thought it would have worked until I made it and liked it).

The only issue I have with growing leaf lettuce like that, is it seams there are endless amounts of bugs within the leaves. I rinse them , put them in the salad spinner and investigate the liquid to see if there are any bugs ( there always are). I try to keep as organic as possible, so i don't use pesticides. honestly, I don't know how organic farms do it.

Although, I do have a Hydroponic / aquaponic system in my basement which is insect free , but I usually use that for basil and other herbs.
 
Lettuces, especially mixed greens, are so easy to grow. I'm always amazed at the prices and fancy names given to them.

I mean, plant a row of various green seeds, and as soon as they sprout, thin them to allow better growth, and what you pulled are "micro greens". Very fancy and expensive. And you hardly did any work.

The next thinning or two are baby greens; again, fancy and easy.

It's the head lettuces that take some work.
 
The only issue I have with growing leaf lettuce like that, is it seams there are endless amounts of bugs within the leaves. I rinse them , put them in the salad spinner and investigate the liquid to see if there are any bugs ( there always are). I try to keep as organic as possible, so i don't use pesticides. honestly, I don't know how organic farms do it.

They use pesticides. They can use "naturally derived" pesticides, but not synthetic pesticides. They are not necessarily safer just because they're "natural." Remember that tobacco and poison ivy are natural, too.

https://www.geneticliteracyproject....demonization-organic-farmers-widely-use-them/
 
For reasons I haven't investigated, all supermarkets in UK have notices about the world shortage of lettuce. As a result the lettuces that are available have rocketted in price.

1) Who wants to eat lettuce anyway in winter in the British climate?

2) Whose nutritional health is going to be seriously compromised by the lack of lettuce in their diet?

3) Do the supermarkets think we are stupid enough to start panic-buying lettuce because they have proclaimed a shortage?
 
Lol. Thou take respite, thou accept loss.

Larry, I've never had many bugs in leaf lettuces when harvested young as I'd mentioned, and head lettuces are usually only attacked by soft bodied leaf eaters which can be dealt with using diatomaceous earth. But that has to be reapplied after every rain. Like I said, head lettuces are work.

Now things like cabbage, broccoli, and the like are pains in the cruciferous with difficult bugs like thrips and aphids.
 
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Now things like cabbage, broccoli, and the like are pains in the cruciferous with difficult bugs like thrips and aphids.

Last time I grew broccoli ( and I mean really the last time) was when I went out to the garden to check the plants. I snapped off a floret of broccoli as a little mid day snack, popped it in my mouth just to realize I had a mouth full of aphids.

They blended in so well, didnt even notice them on a quick glance.
 
I know, they are exactly the same bluish-green color as the broccoli.

I stopped growing it for exactly the same reason. I wanted to stay organic, and any of the natural pesticides that I used didn't work, or were so mild that I didn't apply them often enough.
 
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