Mmm... Lettuce

When you are trying to grow most of your own food, it can be hard not to err on the side of excess. And although excess isn’t necessarily bad, it’s not easy either. Having too much of something with a short shelf life leaves you with a few choices – eat more than you ever thought possible, find someone to give it to (food banks are always willing even if your friends are not), try to preserve it in some way, or compost it.

Currently I am eating more lettuce than I previously thought possible.

Last summer, my partner decided to learn about saving seeds. Turns out that a really easy one to save is lettuce. You just leave the plant alone till it flowers, let the flowers get dry, put the whole thing in a paper bag, and then shake off the seeds. A screen can help to separate the fluff from the seed, but that’s not really necessary. In his excitement at the newfound skill, we ended up with a couple jars of lettuce seed. That’s a lot of seed!

So early this spring, he planted a carpet of lettuce. Yes, his intention was to create a carpet. Basically he took some of his many seeds and broadcast them in a (large) area in one of our flower beds. They looked innocent enough when they sprouted and started growing. I could have put them all in a single salad at that early stage. But at some point in the last couple weeks, the carpet has gotten a bit thick and lush. Like an edible shag carpet. So every night I go out with the snippers to cut enough for a salad, and then the next day I can hardly tell that any has been cut. It’s a beautiful thing. Yes, a person needs to eat more than lettuce, but I’m currently very excited about how good salad can be when it’s been exactly 5 minutes between harvest and dinner.

And it was so very easy. But shortly, the lettuce will be beyond my powers of consumption. Preserving lettuce doesn’t really work (canned lettuce anyone?), so I’ll start giving it away. Neighbors know that if they walk by when I’m outside they’re likely to end up with some food. I’ll do my best to eat and distribute all that we’ve grown, but there’s a chance that some will, in its excess, survive the salad bowl. Then it will either be saved for seed, or composted to be reused, and the cycle starts again. Salad anyone?