So, today we want to feature one of the new-to-us veggies that we are growing this year. We try to expand our horizons every season and there’s seemingly no end to that effort!
This is a green called Mâche, but you might be more familiar with its other names like corn salad, lamb’s lettuce or doucette. The funny moniker of corn salad is due to its tendency to grow wild in the corn fields and farmers likely think of it somewhat like a weed. While its a perennial in zones 5 through 8, we can easily grow it as an annual in colder zones like we are in.
Mache is surprisingly not a “new” veggie, despite the fact you might have never heard about it. It’s native to the Mediterranean and has easily been grown and harvested since Roman times. There’s at least 200 different varieties of Mâche, too! So, it’s probably more historic than even a lot of those heirloom lettuce varieties you might be growing!
One of our interests in trying out these various obscure greens is to find varieties that prefer generally cool temperatures, but don’t start flowering or getting bitter immediately upon receiving a bit of heat. A lot of lettuce varieties do just that, so once we get a heat spell, our greens season gets a bit disrupted. We don’t get “super hot” in the north, so while some areas may see troubles with flowering, we can sometimes skirt by since our average temperatures are comparatively low. Basically, we want to see how well things fit our niche growing climate.
So far, we are liking what we see. While the plant certainly doesn’t pack on as much girth and weight as some of our greens, we’ve had a fair bit of heat and the plant has resisted bolting thus far. We’re also not picking up the heavy bittering that much of our oldest lettuce now has. This may be due to our variety’s relatively long maturity time, coming in around 60 to 70 days. You can find Mâche that matures in a short 40 day window, as well.
Taste wise, Mâche is a bit on the nutty and sweet side of things. It’s actually quite nice, flavor-wise. The greens can certainly stand on their own, but it’d also be right at home in a multi-green mix like we often use. It is a flexible green similar to spinach in that it does well both raw and lightly steamed.
This plant definitely lends itself well to cut and come again types of harvesting. As you pull leaves from the rosette, the plant will replace them. It is not known to re-grow if you harvest the entire plant in one go. That’s generally how we approach most of our leaf lettuce harvesting, so it fits well into our current practices.
You won’t find obscure veggies like this in many “square foot gardening” layouts or in spacing guidelines for other intensive growing techniques. When this is the case, we’re usually a bit conservative and give the plant more space that we think it needs. Now that we’ve seen the plant grow, we’d be comfortable recommending 4 per square foot. You could likely get away with even more density, too, if you really want to pack them in.
So far, we’ve been impressed by this veggie and we’d both grow it again and recommend it for general growth. It’s well behaved, holds up well to our moderate heat and is super tasty, which are great traits for many gardens. Let us know if you’ve heard of it before and if so, what do you think?
