Red leaf lettuce, little gems, frisee and more…

This past Monday, I was part of Marin Organic’s Glean Team, a team of volunteers that gathers at a local farm in Marin to pick ‘unwanted’ greens or rather extras, which are then transported to schools for their school lunch programs and to food pantries in the county. First of all, kudos to the person who came up with that brilliant idea: bringing willing hands to harvest certified organic vegetables that would otherwise get plowed under, and delivering these fresh, local and pesticide-free vegetables to schools so that children eat healthy and get an early appreciation of delicious, organic vegetables.

This time, the location was Star Route Farms in Bolinas. Boy, I love their produce. They have a stand at the Farmers Market in the San Rafael Civic Center, and they have the freshest and tastiest vegetables. How great is it that a farm will allow a bunch of people to come by, tread on their farm and hang around from 4 till about 6.30 pm, way past the end of the workday for farming staff? The lettuces that we gleaned were beautiful, and there were 5 different types of them – a red leaf lettuce, one that looked like little gem, one that was bright green and curly (frisee?) and two that were spotted red and green. I should have asked for the proper names of these lettuces. And if I were even smarter, I would have taken a picture of that beautiful lettuce bed with those 5 rows of different lettuces that stretched for many, many yards.

In that two hours, the dozen of so volunteers probably gleaned about 20% of what was available. We were told by the farm manager that the lettuces have already been ‘cut twice’ and if we hadn’t picked them that day, they would all be plowed under the very next day. The volunteers (including myself) were kind of sad to let the rest of the lettuces go, but hey, we gathered, cleaned and washed about 10 full boxes of lettuces that would be transported in the air-conditioned Marin Organic truck to schools and food pantries early the next morning.

To Marin Organics, to all the farms under this Gleaning Program, and all the volunteers, a salute to you all!