Lettuce Be More Exciting!

Mache
Mache is one of those greens that has too many names to count (corn salad, common cornsalad, lamb's lettuce, feldsalat, nut lettuce, field salad, and rapunzel).  The reason it is commonly called corn salad is that French farmers typically grew it among cereal crops like corn, rye, and wheat. Another interesting story about it's name is that Rapunzel by The Brothers Grimm may have taken its name from this plant - Rapunzel being named for the salad her father came to steal from the sorceress' garden.

This mild-tasting sort of nutty green is extremely hardy so easy to sow in Fall up to couple weeks before the first frost or in early Spring. They can be harvested throughout the winter if protected.  I planted some in the Fall and have some that overwintered for a Spring crop.

You can harvest individual leaves or actually cut the entire plant at ground level.  You can get a second harvest from the cut stub - bonus!  In Europe, a typical dish is corn salad with chopped hard-boiled eggs and crumbled bacon. But it also tastes good with just a simple vinaigrette with some onions or shallots.

Mustard greens
Baby mustard greens will spice up any salad with their peppery flavor. While technically mizuna is a mustard green, 'regular' mustard greens are considered the broad leaf varieties like Southern Giant or Green Wave which have pretty curled leaves, or Florida Broadleaf which has a flat leaf.  Mustard greens pop up very quickly and are easy to grow, taking just about a week or so to sprout.  Pick the young leaves if you want a more mild flavor.  If interested in getting mustard seeds for cooking, you can grow a few plants in Spring and let them bloom and set seeds. When the seed pods dry out in midsummer, you can gather then in a paper bag and let them dry more fully.

Claytonia

Claytonia is a really beautiful green with small, delicate, succulent leaves that have a mild flavor. Each small round leaf has a slender stem that supports small white fragrant flowers. Both the leaves and the flowers are edible. Claytonia is also known as Indian lettuce, Spring beauty, Winter purslane, or Miner's lettuce. Native to Western mountain and coastal areas of the US and Canada, it actually got the name 'miner's lettuce' because it was used during the California Gold Rush miners to provide sufficient Vitamin C to prevent scurvy.

Interestingly, almost all of what we consider edible household weeds (dandelion, thistles, chickweed, etc) here in the U.S. all originate from Europe. However, Claytonia is one that we actually gave to Europe and it can be found in the wild there now. Your welcome, Europe.

Minutina

Minutina, also called Buckshorn plaintain because the leaves are spikey and look like deer antlers, is a very cold hardy Italian green with edible flowers. It's been around since Colonial times and was used then as a medicinal plant for fevers and other ailments.  Minutina tastes a little like parsley, spinach or kale, but sweeter and nuttier. It's hard to find seed in catalogs but I was able to obtain some from Amazon. This video provided a nice summary with some beautiful pictures of what it looks like with some options for harvesting raw or sauteing with some garlic.

These are just a few examples of the many available greens now more readily available from all over the world that you can add to the garden to spice up your traditional greens of lettuce, spinach and arugula. They create an abundance of options for  very colorful and flavorful salads.

For even more great ideas, see this article in Sunset of great greens that you can also try in early Spring. And remember to also keep it interesting when it comes to those radishes and turnips you'll plant soon after! (yes, that WAS a shameless plug to go read an older post).

A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown -
Who ponders this tremendous scene -
This whole experiment in green -
As if it were his own!
-Emily Dickinson