Lettuce in August!

I can think of two good things about this eerily cold summer: 1) the sweet peas are seven feet high and abundant, and 2) we are harvesting lettuce in August.

Despite the fact that some of this lettuce has been in the ground since last winter, it is completely bitter-free, a bit tougher than I’d like, but definitely palatable. If I’d only grown lettuce in a cold frame in spring, we could have been eating fresh lettuce all summer long.

Tonight’s salad included several varieties of lettuce (with three mixes going, there was romaine, red romaine, both green and red lettuce-leaf types, and some speckled butterhead, to be exact). The lettuce was supplemented with sylvetta (it still tastes great, even after having bolted— this one is a keeper), salad burnet, tarragon, and some wild purslane that has mysteriously appeared in the yard. The salad was dressed with tarragon vinaigrette (made with homegrown shallots and the last of last year’s homemade tarragon vinegar) and garnished with nasturtiums and Supersweet 100’s. The dressing really needed a bit more sugar, but that lack made the Supersweets shine.