The spring salad mix is lush and abundant right now. It's one of my favorite things we grow and it always makes me so happy that it is a highlight for our customers too. Depending on each season, it is an ever-changing mix of whatever greens and edible flowers are most delicious and profuse. At the moment, our salad mix contains spinach, arugula, half a dozen different varieties of lettuce, curly cress, pea shoots, nasturtiums, escarole, nasturtium greens, bronze fennel, dill, baby dandelion greens, chamomile flowers, and calendula petals. It is a mouthful of delightful textures and flavors, with the perfect amount of sweet crunch to balance out the bitter, and it tastes like springtime in Virginia.
Honestly, I was never really a huge salad fan. I'm more of a hike all day and eat a burger and fries woman. That is until I began to farm and grow an entire salad for myself. For the first twenty years of my life, almost all of the salads I suffered through were limp, tasteless, and a very poor excuse for food. I think this is true for most of us who grew up in the 90s. The 90s were rough on self-esteem, body image, and vegetables. As an adult in my early twenties, growing spinach was truly a revelation for me. It is so sweet and crisp. Most mornings, I'll munch on it in the field as I'm harvesting or hoeing. And the lettuce! We grow so many different shapes, colors, and varieties. It is so much fun to mix them all together into a beautiful salad. With salads like these, I will eat them every day with no complaints.
Unfortunately, I find that the majority of Americans are also just simply not into salads. We need to eat more vegetables! Study after study confirms that eating vegetables is not only good for us but essential to the health and survival of our home, Mother Earth, as well. Eating more vegetables is good for you and the environment, so why are people so married to their burgers and fries? Burgers and fries are fast and filling while also advertised and subsidized everywhere you turn. Salads, the mixes that you get at the grocery store or in most restaurants, are just so bland and not at all filling. They're also old and probably devoid of most of the nutrition they originally had when first picked and packaged. If you consider that the average vegetable travels 1500 miles from farm to plate in the U.S., then it isn't a gross exaggeration to say that we are eating jetlagged food. All of the vegetables I grow are started from seed right here on our farm, so they are worlds apart from the jet-lagged food you get at the grocery store, including the ones labeled "organic" or "all-natural." Food harvested the day or day before you receive it is the freshest, most nutrient-dense food you can buy, and you will taste and feel the difference.
For the first twenty years of my life, almost all of the salads I suffered through were limp, tasteless, and a very poor excuse for food. I think this is true for most of us who grew up in the 90s. The 90s were rough on self-esteem, body image, and vegetables. As an adult in my early twenties, growing spinach was truly a revelation for me.
The problem of making salads more appealing to my own community and customers consumes me daily. I want to make salads as delicious, easy, interesting and satisfying as possible. We have entered farmers market season now, and I have an endless amount of stories from each year featuring people who range from skeptical and dismissive to downright hostile when I try to sell them my salad mix. On the other end of the spectrum, I have a large cohort of very loyal customers who absolutely love my salad mix and buy it weekly. In between I have people who want to like salads but it's just pretty meh. One of the most common comments I receive many times throughout the year is how long my salad mix lasts—up to a whole month in the fridge! But, of course, I'm just floored that it's still sitting there. I'm glad that my conscientious harvesting and washing practices actually work, but I can polish off a bag of my salad mix in just a couple meals.
I also try to make my salad mix accessible and easy to use. It's triple-washed, so you can eat it straight out of the bag, making for an incredibly easy and quick meal. Toss a jammy or fried egg on it, throw in some seasonal root vegetables like hakurei salad turnips, radishes, carrots, or beets, add a bit of cottage cheese, and there you have it: a whole meal that is both satisfying and filling.
To the best of my ability, I try to make my salad mixes interesting and in support of seasonal eating, each mix is very much of the season, of the earth, of the very essence of my little spot in Virginia. I get bored by plain old salad very easily, so this means that I try my damndest to keep it colorful. Edible flowers are usually in the mix to add flavor and color, yes, but also to make your salad pretty. A bitter green is also likely to be included because bitters aid in digestion, and I love the added flavor they provide.
During the spring, you'll find baby spinach, dandelion greens, and all sorts of heirloom lettuce in your salad mixes. As we transition into summer, you'll begin to see some Asian greens and cabbage making their way in. In July and August, dependent on the heat and humidity, I'll often take a break from growing our salad mix because the majority of lettuce cannot grow well or taste delicious in our extremely hot and humid summers. Lettuce will quickly grow bitter and bolt, and many other greens, like spinach, simply won't grow in our heat. By the time we reach fall, the evenings are cooler and I welcome the return of my salad mix, now lush and colorful with radicchio and chicory. Each season has its own distinct flavor and taste. I was born in September, on the cusp of fall, and I quite readily admit to my love of all the fall vegetables and, most especially, a fall salad mix.
Realizing that you could add whole herbs to salads was another revelation that only came along to me once I was growing all these ingredients and started experimenting. Chop up the green tips of spring onions and throw them in. Dill, cilantro, parsley, oregano, basil, shiso, chives, and bronze fennel all taste absolutely delicious when added to your salad. One rule I've found over the years when experimenting with salads is this: try to put as many textures in as possible and you will not regret it.
When we first began farming, I was a bit of a wimp when it came to salads. I liked mine sweet, heavy on the lettuce and spinach. My husband, Stewart, prefers his spicy and bitter, heavy on radicchio, dandelion, and arugula. Arugula still isn't my favorite, but over the years, I've fallen head over heels for bitter greens like dandelion, radicchio, and chicory. Greens with a bite, who like to show off just a bit. Cut away at the edges of these lovely green and peel back layer upon layer until finally, you arrive at the heart of the heart of the matter. Then softly, so softly, she whispers: I regret nothing because bitter tastes so much better alongside the sweet.
My perfect salad involves a nice mix of lettuce with some bibb and romaine varieties, radicchio for color and bitterness, thinly sliced radishes, turnips and carrots for crunch, croutons because bread is life, and spinach for sweetness. Then, depending on my mood, I'll finish it off simply with a little homemade herby vinaigrette featuring whatever herb I have most of in the garden right now or something more decadent and creamy to balance out the bitter flavors. And you know what? These more bitter greens go beautifully with a nice creamy, heavier dressing to help balance out all the flavors. Salad dressings, just like salads should be fast, easy and delicious. My go to salad dressing is chopped up herbs, lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar, Dijon, salt and pepper, pulsed with my immersion blender until smooth. Soon garlic scapes will be in season and I love adding them to salad dressing for a spicy kick. If I want a creamier dressing I'll add tahini, labne or mayo.
How do you like your salads?
xxxx Natalie
Nothing beats homegrown. I love watching people's faces when they eat lettuce that was cut five minutes before they eat it. Same with fresh-dug potatoes. That's the thing about a garden—it shows you the profound luxury in the supposedly humblest ingredients.
There is a farm in my town that grows arugula that needs nothing else - I eat it straight from the bag and it is so delicious. But if I do want to make a meal of it, some toasted walnuts, roasted beets and a lemon miso salad dressing are perfect. Fall-ish flavors, but so much depth when they come together!