GREENS, REDS AND PURPLES
With the new greenhouse we'll be confronted with the challenge of figuring out what to grow in four good sized houses, we will have a third again as much space as well as an extended growing season due to the heat available, at a reasonable cost, on account of the biomass boiler. One of the main class of crops we intend to expand is the greens that are available for indoor growing.
Recently Tom has been trying out Bok Choy, Mustard Greens and Savoy Spinach. Jo Robinson in her book "Eating on the Wild Side" has much to say about all sorts of greens. Lettuce is something Twin Springs has grown for many years, almost exclusively Red Oakleaf varieties such as Bugatti. Anything I quote below will be from her book.
Jo indicates (p.25):
"The lettuce varieties that have the most phytonutrients share two easily recognizable traits. The first is color. As a general rule, the most intensely colored salad greens have the most phytonutrients. There is also a hierarchy to the colors. Ironically, the most nutritious greens in the supermarket are not green at all but red, purple, or reddish brown. These particular hues come from phytonutrients called anthocyanins, which also make blueberries blue and strawberries red. Anthocyanins are powerful antioxidants that show great promise in fighting cancer, lowering blood pressure, slowing age-related memory loss, and even reducing the negative effects of eating high-sugar and high-fat foods."
The above picture shows a row of our lettuce; please note the color. We are also growing a "Spring Mix", and will grow lots more as the new house comes on-line in a couple of months. There are many deeply colored "greens" in the mix, as well as spicy and even slightly bitter ones (more on that later). Jo goes on to discuss the second trait which indicates higher nutrient levels in leafy greens:
"The second trait to look for is more surprising. The arrangement of the individual leaves on a lettuce plant plays a major role in determining its phytonutrient content. When a lettuce plant has leaves that are tightly wrapped like a cabbage's, the phytonutrient content tends to be very low. This is true of iceberg lettuce and other crisphead varieties. Plants with loose and open leaves, particularly the looseleaf varieties, contain many times more bionutrients...
Why does the arrangement of the leaves on a plant influence its phytonutrient content? The reason is that all leaves have a love-hate relationship with the sun: they need sunlight to grow and produce carbohydrates, but the sun's UV rays can destroy them. In order to survive, they have to manufacture their own botanical sunscreen--pigmented antioxidants that block the harmful effects of UV light. Looseleaf lettuce is the most vulnerable to UV rays because most of its leaves are exposed to direct sunlight. As a result, the leaves have to produce extra quantities of phytonutrients. When we eat loose-leaf lettuce, we absorb those compounds, which then become part of our own self-defense system--not only against UV rays but against cancer, chronic inflammation, and cardiovascular disease as well. The plant's protection becomes our protection."
The field grown sprout-kale cross which we market under its varietal name "Kaleidoscope" not only demonstrates the color and open leaf qualities Jo indicates as super-nutritious in the above sections, but it also embodies another quality, this time relating to flavor, which indicates high levels of nutrients.
"Over the course of ten thousand years of agriculture, our farming ancestors managed to remove the bitterness from most of our greens. Unwittingly, though, when they removed the bitterness, they were also stripping away a host of highly beneficial phytonutrients that happen to have a bitter, astringent, or sour taste. Our mild-to-a-fault iceberg lettuce, for example, has one-fortieth as many bionutrients as bitter dandelion greens. Calcuim is bitter as well, so the calcium content of our modern greens is also relatively low. This could be one of the reasons osteoporosis now afflicts so many older Americans. In 2011 , fourty-four million individuals were diagnosed with low bone density or with osteoporosis, placing them at high risk for fractures. Hunter-gatherers who consumed calcium-rich wild greens had much denser bones than we do today, despite the fact that they consumed no dairy products."
I'm only sayin' that you may want to try some of the different greens you will be seeing Twin Springs trying out in the coming months. The spicy slightly bitter flavor of our arugula indicates high nutrient levels. Many of the greens in our "Spring Mix" are bitter, mustardy or downright spicy-hot, even though the overall mix is reasonably tame due to the addition of many leafy lettuces which are mild and sweet.
The Mustard Greens (Komatsuna) and Savoy Spinach (Yukina), you may have seen, fall into the category of greens with somewhat strong flavors, indicating high nutrient levels. There are more of both along with the more recognizable sweet and crisp Bok Choy (actually a Pak Choi called Win-Win). All of these are suitable for stir fry, steaming or even using raw in salads.
We'll keep on trying out new things to help us all stay healthy; and we are hopeful that you'll come along for the ride. It'll be a learning curve for all of us. Speaking of experiments I almost put in a picture Lyn took of Tom's greenhouse melon experiment; it's too depressing though, so I went with the fine looking lettuce instead.
I'd like to invite any of you who have been receiving a version of this email which has a bunch of the opening
text covered over by the picture to let me know how it looks and how much text is hidden. Tom told me that had happened on his computer quite a few times, but not lately. Two customers have reported the problem and I'm wondering how many more of you might see a flawed version of my newsletter. If you care to let me know, or wish to communicate for any other reason, just hit reply.
I originally had the above as the first paragraph of this newsletter, then realized that those to whom I had addressed it were just the ones to not be able to see it! Reminds me of back when so many of you reported, at market, that you weren't receiving the emails, and I wanted to put in the subsequent emails that if you weren't getting it to let me know. It occurred to me that that would have had little chance of success.