Nothing says late spring as a great
plate of crisp and tender lettuce dressed in aromatic thyme infused vinaigrette. Specially if you happen to
raise the lettuce from seed and watched its rapid development. This is a joy that gardeners share and
others really experience. How can we make food less of a product and more of culture? As we digress from the lifeless lettuce
agribusiness gives us backed to the living lettuce of agriculture? What are tips to grow lettuce more efficiently while keeping true to
its essence? And how can we create our own salad
dressing that exudes flavor? You are about to find out. I'm Siloé
Oliveira and growing food is one of my passions.
Follow me as I rediscover flavor in my suburban homestead. Salads
have been enjoyed since antiquity. Greeks and Romans are said to have eaten mixed greens with dressing. In fact the word salad comes from the
Latin word salata which means salty, as these dishes of greens were usually dressed in a salty brine with oil and vinegar. Salads have regain popularity in America in the end of the nineteenth-century. Although for the longest time since,
iceberg lettuce has been the main ingredient. Even though
it is crunchy, iceberg lacks in terms of flavor. It became so popular only because its
stores and ships well, the main characteristics supermarkets
look. But as a nation, we have recently started to rediscovered the taste of more flavorful albeit more tender and
fragile lettuces. And the great majority of these lettuces
cannot be found at your local grocer. so the best chance to ever tasting them is to grow them yourself. Growing lettuce is easy. Here's tip number one since I want an earlier crop I start
them indoors about four weeks before the last frost in spring as I have shown in the
first episode. So start them indoors. To have a
continuous amount of lettuce for daily use start a new batch of lettuce every two
weeks or so that would be tip number two. Sow lettuce in staggered successions to guarantee a
continuous supply throughout the growing season. If you're a gardener, know how planting everything at the same time will yield a huge harvest all at once.
Which can be convenient depending on the crop in case you're canning or freezing it for
future use, but lettuce cannot be preserved and must be eaten fresh within a few weeks
before it starts flowering loses tenderness and mild flavor. Tip
number three is to plant several varieties together each variety of lettuce expresses
different flavor and texture and mature slower or faster. By getting to
know different varieties, you'll be able to plan for continuous
harvests more effectively. For instance I found out that this
bright green oak leaf variety of lettuce can grow even during
summer months without losing much of its tenderness, and without becoming bitter. So I plant
more of it during hotter months. However, this red-leaved variety grows best in cold weather as it becomes sweeter. During summer it
quickly goes to seed and becomes bitter. But it is a very cold hardy lettuce. Tip
number four if to understand that lettuce grows slowly
with cool weather in grows very fast in hot weather. This
year I planted three batches of lettuce. The first batch in early spring grew large and tender in about six weeks. The second batch was grown during summer
and grew very fast in about three to four weeks. It tended to go to seed faster also. The
last batch grew in six to seven weeks during fall,
and grew smaller due to the cold. Tip number five is to
water lettuce every day unless it's raining. lettuce
thrives with abundant water and should never be allowed to dry out
and become limp. During summer months or in arid
climates grow lettuce in partial shade to preserve moisture and prevent it from
getting too bitter. Tip number six is to interplant lettuce
with other crops. Because lettuce matures faster than many
other crops like tomatoes or collards it makes sense to grow it among other plants as they are smaller, and harvest them as soon as the other
plants have grown big enough to need the extra space. I had good success growing lettuce
under collard greens, as the collards grow taller and shade the
lettece from the sun. The lettuce will be large enough to
harvest just at the collards start to grow bigger. After waiting for a few months to taste
garden fresh lettuce, The first harvest always ends up being a
beautiful day. (From where it comes it goes in circles, sweeping porches, quenching torches. For a new day that vows a promise: Sowing freedom! A vida vai recomeçar.) This beautiful lettuce needs a great dressing that is up to par. I have the perfect recipe: thyme infused vinaigrette. Here's how to do it: one week prior
harvest a good amount of fresh thyme. thyme has the most delicious earthy aroma. Wash the thyme well and put it into the
blender tender stems and all. Add a bottle of white wine vinegar and
blend it until the thyme is completely broken down. This will ensure that all the delicious
flavor goes into the vinegar. But this mixure inside of a jar with a lid and store it in a
cool shaded place for a week. After a week, open the jar and the aroma of thyme should invade the room. Press out the the liquid from the solids and
strain the vinegar through a coffee filter. The resulting
vinegar will be a little cloudy due to the thyme. Refrigerate it. It should keep
for a few months. To make the vinaigrette to the vinegar
add about double the volume in olive oil and add a pinch of salt. Whisk to emulsify this mixture. Add the lettuce, coating it well, and enjoy! This simple yet powerfully flavored dish
will brighten any meal. Join me next time to learn how to build
a compost tumbler Out of recycled materials and don't
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