Garden Digest









Lactuca sativa



For the little backyard gardener, the idea of farm to table is easiest to come to understand with lettuce.

You have to love the defiance of a robust veggie like lettuce; it thumbs its little green nose at the cold temperatures and prospers despite the weather.  You can plant your lettuce as soon as "you can work the soil."  For us, in the arctic climate of Wisconsin, that might mean mid-April, but it can be done.  It is said that, "Gardeners in northern regions often scatter seeds on top of the snow in later winter for exceptionally early spring harvest."  And harvest it is...daily.  Of the limited number of things that I

have tried to grow, lettuce far and away produces the most abundantly and wonderfully useful: dinnertime sandwich? walk out under the backyard sun and clip some butter head with a kitchen scissors.  Eat it raw.  Dice some of your overly slender carrots onto a smooth bed.  It is softer than anything store bought and the freshly-picked holds a distinct natural flavor that is otherwise washed out in store bought.  Farm to table is nothing more than a repackaged idea that used to be so commonplace that there was no need for us to put a name to it – grow your own produce, eat it.  It's better.