Salad greens add fun and variety to your diet. What better way to use homemade salad dressings than piling it on homegrown greens?

Salad greens may not be as essential for survival as potatoes or corn, but they sure add some interest to meals.

With the right set up and the right climate, an enterprising individual can grow salads year-round. But in this part of the world, the heat makes salad growing in the summer quite the challenge. So we mostly take a break from salad growing in the height of summer.

If all the lettuce you’ve had came from the grocery store, you’re missing out. Lettuces grown in the garden tend to have more flavor than what comes from the store. Garden greens taste almost shockingly sweet, with some varieties or weather conditions also providing a nicely balanced bitter character…perfect with a homemade dressing!

Above: The lettuce plot in May 2015. Vibrant, green, and ready to eat: Romaine, Buttercrunch, Oak Leaf, Red Saladbowl and Ruby Red lettuces, plus a stray beet. Romaine wins overall, but we love a selection.

Earlier this year we ate greens out of a small patch from late March until the middle of June! That meant salads or stir fry once or twice a day, and enough for six people at a time.

A myriad of lettuces aren’t the only greens grown in the garden. We also enjoy pak choy, green onions, kale, colorful swiss chard, carrots, cabbage leaves, spinach and so forth.

We’re salad green fans here and we’re now looking forward to the fall crop that’s coming up.

Bring ’em on!

-Guest post from Al

Thank you for reading the Lucas Forge blog!

Do you have a favorite lettuce or other green?