The Salad Seige

Just look at that slim little packet. It looks so harmless, so incapable of causing trouble, doesn’t it?

The thing is, that’s a lettuce seed packet, and in the wrong hands, it can be a dangerous thing. Not so much ‘lethal-weapon’ dangerous as ‘taking-over-your-life-dangerous.’

Which is to say that in February when it’s cold outside and you’re absolutely sick and tired of life without something green to eat, you just might push way too many of those tiny lettuce seeds into the seed trays, and then you might get excited and plant, say, three varieties of lettuce, along with arugula and spinach and tatsoi, and your gardening partner Ellen might do a bang up job of watering these little babies and turning them into plants, and you might make the mistake of transplanting all of them into the garden and well, you just may have too much lettuce maturing at the same time!

That was a long sentence.

So we eat salads, excited at first, but then sort of more out of obligation. They’re beautiful and how wonderful to have them, but didn’t I just have salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner? I must be incredibly healthy eating all these greens, but wouldn’t the chickens like some? (yes, they do!)

Beyond salads, I’ve grilled it.

I’ve tossed shreds on pizza.

I’ve worked it into breakfast with eggs.

I wilt it under pasta.

I’ve even resorted to a lettuce sandwich. Yes, there’s cheese on there (token) and butter (liberal) but really, it’s about the lettuce. Big slabs of romaine, crunchy with a touch of bitterness. Crazy, but delicious. After all, why do we put one or two little wimpy leaves of lettuce on a sandwich? Who can taste that? I say, if you want lettuce on your sandwich, do it like you mean it!

I also say, get a salad spinner.

And strong-arm every garden visitor to take many heads ‘o lettuce home with them.

And I say, get a handle on succession planting, the careful art of having many plantings of the same crop coming due at different times.

We’re working on that…