Have I mentioned before my love/hate relationship with lettuce?

I love it. It’s so fresh and adds so much to a sandwich, or salad.

I’ve been trying to grow it forever.

I’ve discovered I’m not patient enough and I usually start cutting and picking leaves long before the stuff has matured.

This year I bought a lettuce bag and planted tons of little tiny lettuce seeds.

As I mentioned before I’m impatient and I got my nose out of joint because they didn’t sprout soon enough for me.

So now I have tons of lettcue.

I wanted to plant a succession of lettuce crops but that means planting thinly which I did not.

My other pet peeve is washing lettuce.

This is my method…

1. Spray lettuce before cutting.
2. Soak a few minutes in a cold water bath in the sink
3. Drain the water and soak again.
4. Drain the water and soak again
5. Spray leaves as I’m pulling out to spin (my mother finally gave me back our lettuce spinner)

On my drain yesterday an earwig went down the drain…

WHAT?!

I had washed the mess THREE times!

I still love lettuce and we ait it anyway.

BTW I’ve had the stuff from the grocery store hatch larvae in my fridge before sssshhhhuuudddderrrrr!!!! It was organic

By the way this week’s e-newsletter from Molly Green was about lettuce. Recipes and all. If you don’t subscribe you should. It’s free for the weekly newsletter and you get nice tips and some free resources.

How do you wash your lettuce?

So the last time I bought lettuce in the grocery store my little nice bag of freshly washed lettuce went bad well before the expiry date.

I thought about buying the lettuce that is still growing in the little pod thingy but then I decided that I really wanted my own lettuce. You know from my own home. Sometime in 2007 I posted about how a serious gardening friend of mine harvested her own lettuce through the winter from her back porch so I thought I would grow my own lettuce.

Well I really didn’t know what I was doing and really didn’t read about it. Sadly my daughter and I just sowed a few seeds in a miserly fashion in a couple of pots that let us (lettuce Hahahah!) know mad they were by not really taking off.

So I sent an SOS call to my friend and she gave me a few tips on having a better harvest.

Whilst we await the new shipment of lettuce seeds I went and bought some organic lettuce starts which we transplanted this morning. You can see them below…

This is Romain and Butter Crunch. Shortly after I placed them outside it rained kind of heavy so they look flattened. I’m wishing them well and moving on.

Oh a little tid bit on my potting mixture. I’m feeling rather farmer like these days as my garage is packed with potting mix, lime, vermiculite, fertilizer etc.

So the salad greens are in a mix of potting soil, vermiculite, and peat moss with a dollop of fertilizer. I mixed like I cook and so it’s pretty much a third of each (except fertilizer) with a little less of the vermiculite.
I’ll let you know how it does. I did the same with a teeny pot of cilantro I’m messing with.

Meanwhile I also landed upon this blog post… Growing Lettuce Indoors and decided to give that a try. I had about 25 seeds of a lettuce mixture from seedsavers.org left over so I used that. Just go to the url and look up lettuce mixture. There is only one (unless you’re a member). That’s the one I used and I’m giving that a try below…

Stay tuned…

We love salad but the lettuce always wilts too soon. I try to only shop once a week so this has been a bit of a bother. But! Alas! Working from a tip in one of Emilie Barnes’ books.
I now have been able to save my lettuce a full week (we eat it by then) without the inevitable wilt.

So here is my method…

You will need a plastic food bag. I use freezer bags because they are so much sturdier and I can wash and re-use them. Some paper towels and your preferred lettuce! Oh and water. Yes! To wash your lettuce in. Let us begin…

First wash and dry your lettuce. I actually fill my sink (after cleaning it) and dump all the lettuce in there. Swishing heavily. I then drain it on paper towels or the less wasteful me lays it out on waffle weave kitchen cloths (as above). I do have one of those windy things but it’s put away so far I want to get rid of it. Emily Barnes says put it in the spin cycle in your washing machine. I can’t do that. I have a front loader and if I did that my lettuce would be smoosh!

Next get your paper towels ready. These will be at the bottom of your bag.

I use about 2 nice thick ones from Costco.

Fold your paper towels in half and place them at the bottom of your bag.

Mine has been through a few washing as you can see.

Now place your semi dry leaves in the bag. Mine always have a few droplets of water still on them.

The paper towels serve to soak up that excess liquid.

The lettuce bagged and ready to go.

• Place two more folded paper towels on top and voila! Place the closed bag in your fridge and enjoy lettuce a wee bit longer.

Depending on how much lettuce I’ve worked with sometimes I’ll replace the paper towels mid week.

Enjoy!