Lettuce

It's been an embarrassment of riches this spring for Rhode Island Farmers. After our worst flooding in 200 years back in March, the weather has been near perfect. Temperatures have been above normal and while rainfall has been a little low, the water tables are high (for obvious reasons) so there's no shortage of water for growing crops. Last week we had a record setting day of 96 degrees which is unheard of in May. Pepper plants doubled in size in a single day and radishes got even more of that distinctive peppery flavor.

Warm weather has also brought perennials in ahead of schedule. Fruit trees are flowering early and yesterday I noticed the lavender is budding out. Now, we shouldn't have lavender flowers until July, but from the looks of the plant, it could be flowering out in early June!

There are a couple of issues with this year of early crops. First, flowering plants are pollinated by bees who work on a schedule. Could this early flowering throw off their schedule and disrupt pollination? Second, most plants have insects that attack them. Those insects also have predators. If the insects hatch early but their predators don't, some nasty insects could multiply and defoliate unchecked.

Time will tell on these worries, but for now, we're loving the bounty of lettuce. One Love Farm has twice as much lettuce as we usually have this time of year. And we've been growing many new varieties this spring. One is a red leaf lettuce I got from the Pacific Northwest. It is called Outrageous and it is almost a Romaine type red leaf. I pick lettuce early to create a custom cut leaf mix. This week we had a bunch of Outrageous in the mix along with a curly green variety, beet greens and arugula. I held some back for us to eat this week and it's a good thing because we sold out of lettuce at the Richmond Farmers' Market by 10am!