market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Market Farming
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- From: "William McKay" <bmckay55 AT hotmail.com>
- To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
- Subject: Re: greenhouse
- Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 11:08:16
Adrianna
Regarding the baby lettuce, I have used quite a few different ones. The butterheads seem to be the nicest (to my eyes), but the restaurants don't care what kind I have, as long as they are baby types. Of course, I am in a pretty enviable position. I live very close to Boston and there are virtually no farmers left in the area. Some restaurants deal with the few farmers left in the area, but most are forced to rely on produce wholesalers, so the jump at the opportunity to buy locally grown produce, especially 'baby' types.
In any case, I have had pretty good luck with Pirat & Merveilles des Quatre Saisons (I now bring it in from Italy where it is called 4 Stagioni, a much better name I think). They both have very nice color & good growth habits for baby lettuce; the 4 seasons inthe fall turns a lovely maroon/red color. It also takes the cold pretty good. Still have some going in the unheated greenhouse and it has been a fairly cool winter. Have also sold rouge grenoblaise and lollo rossa as baby.
However, you might want to ask your own customers what they want. That is what I did. While they were unable to tell me "I want Pirat lettuce cut at 31 days", they could tell me what the end result they desired was; I then played around with different varieties and came up with something that they liked and I could grow.
Definitely concur with your observation on Johnny's. My brother is a real farmer (unlike me) and he swears by the folks there. They really do know their business.
As for when I harvest them, it depends. The customers want them small. I would put out a 5-6week transplant and could harvest it in 25-30 or so days if the weather cooperated. On the other hand, I could also hold it another few weeks; even if it got too big, just strip off some of the outer leaves and voila, baby lettuce. I used to bring them into the restaurant and let them strip them; the staff had the leavings in their salads.
Bill McKay in E. Massachusetts
SeedsfromItaly - Importer of Italian packet vegetable seeds
Subject: Re: Greenhouse questions
From: "Adriana Gutierrez" <gutierrez-lagatta AT home.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:30:05 -0600
X-Message-Number: 4
Great discussion on greenhouses. A couple of questions and comments:
Bill, what variety of seeds do you use for your baby lettuces and at
how many days from seeding do you harvest? I recall a conversation
with the sales rep from Johnny's (Di Cody is great, she really knows
her stuff) who mentioned that in Hawaii growers are marketing a
Rainbow Mix of teenage sized heads of lkettuce for an excellent
price/#. Multiple varieties packed in "waves" in one case.
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-
Re: greenhouse,
William McKay, 02/01/2001
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
- RE: greenhouse, Frankie Whitman, 02/01/2001
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