Missing Greens

I knew the salad situation was bad last week when customers showed up irate because they couldn’t find any salad greens at the market. “Why are you angry at me? I don’t raise vegetables,” I retorted. They knew that, but they just wanted someone with whom they could commiserate. I wasn’t about to tell them that I nabbed one of the very few bags of mixed greens long before the market opened—one of the many benefits of being a vendor. I was tempted to hand them over for one particularly forlorn soul but quickly remembered that I too had gone a few weeks without my beloved salad greens, so I kept quiet.

It’s just not the salad greens, but also parsley and cilantro which have gone MIA for the most part, unless you’re one of the lucky few who have waited in line and sprint directly to your favorite vendor who sells those items.

Well, my fellow eaters of local foods, we have encountered a perfect storm. With a national outbreak of parasites in industrial nationally distributed produce, a heat dome coupled with record-breaking wildfire smoke, and pressure from wildlife all at the same time what do you get? A shortage of fresh greens and herbs.

First, let’s address the demand. As the growing outbreak of Cyclospora sickens over 7,400 people to date (as per CDC) across the country, more people are ditching eating out and prepackaged produce, instead heading out to farmers markets in hopes of finding safer fresh greens. Between a global pandemic and regional egg shortage, I have enough experience to know when there is an influx of newcomers at the market. They inquire for out of season items along with produce not grown on the eastern seaboard. Who carries avocados and bananas? is a dead giveaway. Or they will come right out and ask for fresh greens and herbs after 11 AM. The groan of frustration is a flashing neon sign that says newbie after I tell them they need to be here when the market opens next week at 9 AM.

Hey, don’t get mad at me, get mad at the people who cut the CDC budget for monitoring food-borne illnesses. You know the government has seriously messed up when all the major media outlets, including the heavyweights such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR and every other major news outlet skip the niceties of intestinal distress and stomach issues, going straight for explosive diarrhea. Never in all my years of writing this blog could I have imagined using those words as yet another reason to know your farmers and patronize your local farmers markets, but here we are.

Even if there was not an outbreak of parasites leading Taco Bell to take fresh produce out of their products and Whole Foods pulls packaged salads from the shelves, we would still be missing much of our supply of fresh greens and herbs. Think back to only a few weeks ago when the temperature soared into triple digits and the air choked with wildfire smoke. Most of our market greens grow in greenhouses. Those greenhouses are ventilated, but they are not air-conditioned. Even with shade cloth and fans, temperatures still rose high enough to cook our salads right in the dirt. The only thing to do at that point is turn the ground and start over. In 3 to 4 weeks, there will be salad again. Fresh herbs take a little longer. The first plantings of cilantro have already bolted, meaning they have gone to seed, resulting in a bitter taste and steep decline in leaf quality. “You know it’s bad when my wife had to go buy cilantro go make fresh salsa for the family,” lamented, one of our produce growers who usually has an abundance of the pungent herb as well as a couple different kinds of parsley.

Your farmers have absolutely no control over the weather. When Mother Nature decides to take out crops before they can be harvested, the only thing to do is replant. Not all tender greens are cultivated inside, especially in the summer months. This is when Mother Nature’s minions get in on the act. The same attributes making tender salad greens palatable to people are the same reason that wildlife seek them out. Rob Young, of Young Harvests lamented how deer have decimated some of his crops. “Deer can eat hundreds of dollars’ worth of salad in a single night and once they know where the goodies are, they will come back again and again.”

So what are eaters to do? One excellent suggestion came from a longtime patron who still eats salads, although ones made without tender greens. “This is the summer of Greek salads for us. We’re eating lots of cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, feta, red onions, dressed with good olive oil and vinegar, all of which we get at the market.”  So, remember next time that you can’t find your favorite tender greens or fresh herbs, there are always plenty of other choices to try at the farmers markets.