Let Them Eat Lettuce

The farmer’s dilemma at Arlington Gardens this week : with how many varieties of lettuce can we ply our customers over a given time period? An existential question which returns to haunt us every season. Our field plan calls for staggered harvest dates for successive varieties of lettuce, but — surprise, surprise – 3 varieties with different maturity dates have all come due at the same time. What’s a farmer to do? Weigh his customers down in lettuce, or feed the local deer? The conundrum is frequent in the greens department, particularly in the lettuce section – where, as if through some quirky telepathy, the plants seem to sync up their growth patterns, in blatant disregard of seed catalogue prognostications…Not to worry, however, as finite quantities of harvest bins will be a natural constraint on what is currently seeming like an infinite supply of salad leaves. That said, you should expect more than one lettuce in your basket this week.

Following on tomato orders (which we are still fulfilling), this week marks the beginning of garlic deliveries. As per our previous e-mails, note that the garlic we will be delivering has been cured specifically for storage over the winter and into the spring, provided you take care to keep it in a cool and dry place, preferably in its original paper bag, in relative darkness. Leaving it in the recesses of a pantry is recommended…En passant, note that we still have Italian tomatoes available for freezing | canning – there’s still time to stock up for the winter. We look forward to seeing you all again shortly.