Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Lettuce Mix

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is undoubtedly one of the most popular fresh produce items for small farmers serving their local communities. Baby salad mixes are especially convenient for customers sourcing vegetables locally, as one of the most laborious activities for making a salad is complete before they bring their produce home. We ran a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program on our first farm in Ojai and aimed to keep lettuces in our members’ vegetable shares for as long as the season allowed. Here’s a lettuce mix we grew pretty regularly during those days. It’s composed of four lettuce (Lactuca sativa) varieties: two leaf types (Red Sails, Black Seeded Simpson) and two headed (Freckles Romaine and Dark Green Romaine) ones.

While we primarily grew and harvested these lettuces for bagged salad mixes, the staggered growth rates of the individual varieties make the CSA Mix a good all-season selection. The faster growing open leaved Black Seeded Simpson and Red Sails are perfect for early harvests in the summer (but grab them fast, because they do bolt quickly in the heat), as the romaine get its time to mature for full head harvests. In the cooler seasons the open leaf varieties are slower to bolt and better for full head harvests, while the romaines work excellent for baby leaf harvests. 

Lettuces are annual crops good for harvesting baby greens from at around 30 days in ideal growing conditions, full sized heads at approximately 60 days. Your time may vary depending on fertility, watering, and other seasonal conditions.

Seeds are certified organic by Oregon Tilth.