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The magic circle is made of three-foot-long tapered boards that are connected by two concentric circles of bender board. After the greens were planted, laser drip tubing was snaked among the plants. Spray heads were used to irrigate the blue star creeper ground cover among the boards.
After years of growing hundreds of salad greens, I’ve found that I really enjoy mâche, miner’s lettuce, spinach, perpetual spinach, dandelions, many of the Oriental greens, and most lettuces. I’m less enamored with the strong-flavored arugula and shungiku greens, preferring to use them as herbs rather than as a chief ingredient in salads. Further, I find I seldom plant some of the heirloom chicories, as they are so unpredictable, and I still haven’t developed a taste for purslane (I’m put off by its slippery texture). In contrast, I’ve yet to meet a lettuce I don’t like. They are all so lovely and tasty, and each gives its own look to a salad. The romaines have a crisp texture, the butterheads are velvety, and the leaf lettuces are beautiful and tender. If forced to grow but a few, I guess I’d choose ‘Oak Leaf,’ the Batavians, and the velvety ‘Buttercrunch’; still, I’d miss all the others for all their great shapes and colors.
The same area as viewed from the front walk is shown about ten weeks later, after the greens have filled in.
The garden looks different when viewed from the tea house looking toward the front walk. Here rosemary, Japanese red mustard, Vietnamese coriander, and the blue flowers of an ornamental campanula create a background for the greens.
interview
Shepherd Ogden
Shepherd Ogden and his wife, Ellen, run a seed company in Londonderry, Vermont, where they specialize in salad vegetables and carry the seeds of more than forty varieties of lettuce. Shep’s family has grown vegetables for many years, and his enthusiasm for salad greens is obvious when he talks about them.
At one time Shep supported himself while writing poetry by driving a cab in Cambridge. Then in the early 1970s, during a summer visit to his grandfather, Sam Ogden, a garden writer who had a small market garden, Shep planted the garden for him. The work was so satisfying that he took over the garden the next year and sold produce to local restaurants and vacationers. Unable to obtain some of the specialty lettuces he wanted from other American companies, he started his own seed company a little while later.
Shep talked to me about the different types of lettuces, dividing the many varieties into categories. First he discussed forcing lettuces, which are grown in greenhouses or cold frames. “We plant forcing lettuces in our heated greenhouse in mid-February and transplant them to the outdoor tunnels in mid- to late March,” he said. “In Vermont that means harvesting in the middle of May. These types will grow in temperatures as low as fourteen degrees because they’ll actually freeze, unthaw, and recover. My favorite for forcing is ‘Magnet,’ a butterhead that forces exceptionally well.
“Most lettuces are spring lettuces—except for the overwintering types,’’ Shep explained. Spring weather is ideal for growing lettuces, and even summer and fall lettuces can be grown in the spring, although some spring lettuces will not tolerate the heat of summer or the cold of fall or winter.
“I like the big beautiful heads of ‘Red Sails’ and ‘Black-Seeded Simpson,’ which grows fast and tastes good. ‘Red Grenoble,’ another of my favorites, is a vigorous grower and can be cut as loose-leaf lettuce or left to head up. ‘Four Seasons’ is a good red butterhead and seems to grow a little longer into the summer than some around here do.
“For the summer ‘Esmeralda’ is a great butterhead with big, beautiful heads. We’ve had good luck with that even in the middle of the summer. Of course, our summers aren’t as hot as many; they’re usually in the seventies with some days in the low eighties. Occasionally we get temperatures in the nineties, but they don’t last long enough to really hurt the lettuce. And we always have cool nights.
“Other summer lettuces I like are ‘Matchless’ and ‘Buttercrunch,’ which have very nice heads; ‘Matchless’ is the darker of the two and has unique, triangular leaves. ‘Red Riding Hood’ is nice—it’s similar to ‘Four Seasons’ but darker and holds better in the heat. Of course, I must mention ‘Sierra,’ a butterhead type with a bronze tinge, as it’s the most heat-tolerant of all the varieties. ‘Craquerelle du Midi’ also holds well in the heat and is like ‘Buttercrunch’ but more open-hearted. I don’t care for the texture that much, but it’s popular among people in warm climates. People even write to us from Florida to tell us how well it does there.
‘“Diamond Gem,’ another summer variety, is my personal favorite at the moment. I planted a lot of it and found it did really well. It’s very heat-resistant—so heat-resistant that it almost fouls up our successions, because it can sit in the heat longer than most of the other lettuce varieties in the same bed without going to seed. But that makes it a good home variety, and it’s the best sandwich lettuce I know of.
“Of the fall/winter lettuces, I like ‘Winter Density.’ That’s like a large ‘Diamond Gem,’ but with row covers it overwinters here—or it grows well in the summer. ‘Brune d’Hiver,’ another nice winter lettuce, is more brown than red and is real hardy. That one overwinters here with no problem, but it has to be planted late in the summer to prevent bolting.
“Of the cutting lettuces, I like ‘Royal Oak Leaf,’ ‘Salad Bowl,’ and ‘Red Salad Bowl.’ I grow large amounts of these three side by side because they’re so beautiful and look so good in salads. The ‘Royal Oak Leaf’ gets bitter easily, though, and it’s more susceptible to disease than the others are. There is a red form, too, called ‘Brunia.’
“For other greens, we do fine with escaroles and endives, but chicories, which should be planted in the fall for a spring harvest in a Mediterranean climate, are really chancy here. ‘Sugar loaf,’ ‘Ceriolo,’ ‘Spadona,’ ‘Puntarella,’ and ‘Dentarella’ are all chancy, as are red chicories, the radicchios. We grow them on a spring/fall schedule rather than a fall/spring schedule, and I always leave some in the ground because I’ve discovered that they occasionally will survive the winter. We’ve tried forcing various radicchios as you would ‘Witloof,’ but they haven’t done well.
“Obviously, rocket [arugula] also needs to be included on the list of other greens,” Shep continued. “Its spicy flavor is a good addition to salads. I have no use for ‘White Mustard,’ on the other hand; it has a hairy leaf. I much prefer ‘Miike Purple,’ ‘Osaka Purple,’ or mizuna. Mizuna has beautiful cut foliage and a mild flavor. I also like all of the cresses. I sow the seeds often and harvest when they’re very small. I like mâche too. I prefer the big-leaf kinds like ‘Piedmont’ or the cup-leaved ‘Coquille.’ Then there is the whole range of minor greens that really make a mesclun mix stand out: miner’s lettuce [claytonia], golden purslane, minutina, shungiku, orach—the list goes on—we grow about forty kinds.”
As Shep’s strong ideas about varieties indicate, there are lots of options. Deciding which lettuces are best for your garden depends on your climate and season and on which ones enchant you the most!
‘Marvel of Four Seasons’ is a lush spring leaf lettuce that originated in France. It is sometimes sold under its French name:
