I'm pouting.
It's hard to eat local; it's hard to eat seasonal.
I find my body is craving all the greens from the beginning of the season, and because of all the unseasonably hot weather we've been having here, all the greens look wilted and sad. I did manage to pick up one bag of mixed greens at the farmers market today, but when I go to the supermarket, I look at those perfect looking heads of lettuce and think, "what did they spray those with to make them look so perfect?" Now that we have a farmshare, I'm used to my vegetables having holes in them, and even sometimes having worms or snails. Yes, that's normal and healthy.
Frankly, it now grosses me out to look at much of the conventional produce at the grocery. Even the bagged spinach I use for my smoothies is unappealing.
I'm ruined!
It makes me wonder how people in cold weather climates eat seasonally. How do you make it work?
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1 comment:
Don't despair-it can be done! Lettuce and salad greens actually grow best in the cool, wet weather of spring and fall, especially when given a little frost proteection. Spinach is also very hardy and will easily overwinter in New England when planted in the fall. The problem is the hot, dry weather and long days of summer-these two factors make these plants turn bitter, go to seed and die. I just cleared out whatever was left of the spring lettuce and planted a crop for fall. Last year I was able to harvest until early December, and some of the plants overwintered for a nice spring harvest in April!
As for the plump heads of lettuce you see in the store-you can bet that they are grown with pesticides and irrigation. Also, California is at a lower latitude than New England, the summer days are shorter, so plants are less likely to bloom.
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