Reply #9: EXPLANATIONS... [View All]

The green leaf lettuce in question came from a health food store with a significant organic vegetables section (Lassens in Goleta, CA). But this has been a problem elsewhere.

For a year I "subscribed" to a CSA (community supported agriculture) program in my hometown of Lompoc (it's one of the very few "progressive" programs in my airforce/prison community). Anyway, the non leafy veggies were great, but the leafy ones were almost always more trouble than they were worth. It was basically a deal where the organic farm would go out, cut as many veggies as they needed to supply us (sometimes TONS of stuff, ***WAY*** more than I could possibly eat (or clean!) in a week), and deliver it for a flat subscription fee. Anyway, leafy stuff here often had lots of bugs. I'd sometimes find colonies of some type of fly in the brocolli. Lots of spiders and worms in the leafy stuff (usually lettuce, the chard was generally much better), and once a weird glowing worm in the cauliflower.

Also, when I grow artichokes myself, they're always infested with pincher bugs. I suppose I could try to drown them out, but in general I just let the fruits bloom instead (they're quite beautiful).

And I know I should just bite the bullet and do the cleaning and not worry so much about muching a couple worms, but I'm just too lazy and too much of a wuss. Again, skinned fruits and veggies - no problem, but the leafy stuff... I don't know.

Maybe I should try to get to the Farmers' market (though I wouldn't expect their stuff to be well cleaned either) or maybe I can find some packaged organics that are thuroughly cleaned.

Any other advice for the doesn't-want-to-be-a-yuppie hippie?

And any tips on keeping the little critters out of my homegrown stuff?

david

Kucinich 2004

Arianna YES
Recall No