This year I didn’t start
spring vegetables such as broccoli from seeds, so we bought broccoli plants at
a nursery. Then Dennis went to the Lawrence Farmers Market and stopped by a
booth selling starter plants. He came home with an odd assortment of four-packs,
including a heritage red and green, cos-type lettuce called Forellenschluss, radicchio, arugula, and
cilantro. Set into the garden the arugula and cilantro shot up and went to seed
before we could harvest them. We should have direct seeded those instead of
buying plants.
The Forellenschluss matured in a
more timely manner and was a good investment. Dennis harvested the heads by cutting them at the base
and now the roots, which he didn’t disturb, are growing new lettuce
heads.
One radicchio shot up and
started a seed head, so that one went to the chickens, who pronounced it
delicious. Yesterday Dennis harvested a radicchio that was, as Goldilocks would
say, “just right.” I pulled off the outer leaves for the chickens and was left
with this pretty rosette, shown here in a cereal bowl.
Here it is again, this time
resting on freshly-harvested broccoli.
Radicchio is a perennial
chicory. If we aren't too lazy we can double the output by digging up the radicchio
roots, potting them in peat moss, and putting them in the basement to grow
again. Like the lettuce, it also would re-grow in the garden, but it grows more
slowly and wouldn’t do well if hot weather comes, which surely will happen.
My grocery store sells
radicchio heads for $3.99, so I’ve concluded that Dennis made a couple of wise purchases at the farmers market.
Copyright
2014 by Shirley Domer
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