How we grow our salad mixes

Our salad mixes are the most popular item that we sell at the local farmers market. Over the years we’ve tried many different methods on growing the best mix of greens for that perfectly balanced salad. Here’s how we currently grow them on the farm:

Raised boxes

To get an extra early start, (and to make them easier to harvest!) we grow all of our greens in raised garden beds. The beds were made on the farm from cedar that we’ve saw-milled. We filled our beds with 4-way organic soil and top it off with organic compost once a year. In the colder months we cover them with clear poly sheeting and in the heat of summer we shade them with 47% shade cloth.

What we plant

We’ve tried a variety of pre-mixed blends, but have found that due to different growing times and habits, growing this new way works best for us. Our blend comprises of Red and Green leaf lettuces, mustard, tatsoi and baby spinach. You can see in the bed below that we grow each component separately, so we can pick them at their peak of freshness. Growing in this bed is Green Salad Bowl, Outredgeous Romaine, Central Red Mizuna, and Green Coin Tatsoi.

How we harvest

We harvest our salad mixes the day before market. For lettuces, it’s important to harvest them in the coolest part of the day, so we typically harvest them early in the morning. We then triple wash them, spin them dry and allow them to air dry in a cool room before weighing and bagging the produce. During all parts of the washing process we spot check our greens to make sure they are of the best quality. We then cool them in our large commercial cooler overnight. This process means are greens will keep fresh longer than anything bought at the store. We’ve had our bags last us 2 weeks+.