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Blue’s Spotlight on Lettuce: Recalls, Safety & Growing Your Own

Just when we thought it was safe to eat lettuce in Canada again, Facebook and our news feeds are overwhelmed with news of a lettuce recall in the United States. What better time to talk about lettuce!

We always try to grow our own lettuce during the summer. But the growing season is really short in Eastern Canada. So, while we do our best to extend the growing season by growing lettuce in containers we can move indoors when it gets cold, we still have to buy some from the grocery store.

My kids really like iceberg lettuce, which seems to be safe right now. But my husband loves his Caesar salad. And how are you going to make that without Romaine lettuce? The lettuce in the stores is all from America right now, but no lettuce recall here in Canada.

What’s with that? I mean, if it’s still not safe to eat Romaine lettuce in the States and our lettuce comes from the States, then we should be avoiding it too! Whatever, I’m not buying Romaine for a while. I’ll stick to the leaf lettuce that should be in the stores soon, and Boston lettuce or iceberg. Or we’ll make our salads with spinach and cabbage. They’re both still safe, right?

We will probably plant our lettuce next weekend. If all goes well, I should be harvesting my own lettuce by mid-June. I just cut a few leaves from the outside of each head when I want to make salad. The heads grow new leaves to replace them.

We only cut what we need, and then wash the lettuce and dry it really well. Salad dressing won’t stick to the leaves if they’re wet! This time of year, I buy a couple of heads at a time. We’re really careful how we store lettuce and other green leafy vegetables. I can keep them fresh for about two weeks if I need to. But they’re usually all gone by the end of the first week!

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What do you think?

Written by Blue Sailor

4 Comments

    • We have to buy a lot of lettuce because the season is so short here. We start harvesting lettuce in June, but by July it bolts. I’ve never tried growing lettuce for the fall, but I think it would be tricky here. The weather is so extreme. July & August, we die in the heat. But by September, we start getting frost at night.