Market Farming

["Elizabeth Pike" <pike AT always-online.com>]

Robin,

Harvesting your lettuce should be done 2-3 days ahead of time.  For
your lettuce to survive transport & display, it must be thoroughly
chilled.  When I first began at the fm (it opens at 6am), I would get
up at 3 to harvest lettuce, wanting it to be absolutely fresh.  By
7:30am, it looked horrible.  So I began harvesting the previous night.
It did better.  Then I discovered, the lettuce I harvested for my
personal use, would keep for a week in my fridge-just as fresh as the
day I picked it.

Now I pick my mf lettuce 2-3 days ahead, and also found this relieves
some of the burden of doing so much harvesting the day before market.
At first I was concerned my customers would object to 2-3 day old
lettuce, since "fresh" to me means picked that day.  So I now harvest
a bit of lettuce that AM, to show my customers why 2-3 day old lettuce
is superior to fresh cut!  Sells them every time, and they learn how
to properly prepare it to maximize their $$.

Liz
Morningstar Gardens
Pollocksville NC