Salad leaves

One of my subsidiary goals for 2009 is to increase the volume of fresh leaves I can grow and deliver to my customers, as well as giving them a choice of about 20 varieties from which to choose. If I have a dedicated vehicle just to deliver the leaves and have the order forms filled with customers leaving the money for their order in their homes, I can actually have this service more organized so I can deliver to multiple locations as many times a week as the demand and supply fit.

Before I get in over my head with the ambitions to grow more varieties of leaf with mint being the latest I am trying to find cuttings to plant, I have just been successful in growing the first crop of salad leaves all of which sold out on my last delivery on Monday and I have put a few more seeds on the ground. In my case there was never any use of pesticides and so I was very surprised that they had not been attacked my any sort of bug. I know how much pesticides the farmers in Nuwera Eliya, who do not grow it under green houses use, so I was proud to show this to my customers who had no hesitation in agreeing to take them. I did not tell the price, of Rs30/- a bunch, which is the price of all my leaves, though I know it cost me a lot more than that to produce.

I took a photo of both my salad leaves and ‘kola guava’ to post here. This is traditionally known as Nuwera Eliya produce but if one saw how well they grow here in Godagama, only 28km from Colombo people will be surprised.

Just making one other point on leaves, I have decided as part of this same exercise to learn what leaves are used for kola kanda and attempt to locate them growing wild in my property and carefully husband them. It is amazing how much the locals know of the leaves and the preparation method for mallung. I am not a great leaf eater myself and am slowly learning some of the secrets and will share them with you my reader as and when I learn about them. In this regard I am trying to prepare a kola kanda mix to be part of my delivery items, so that the preparer will not have to do too much in its preparation, which is always a problem in Colombo homes which now have fewer domestics than in the past. Those who are there know less and less in of the ways of preparing the various items and will one day require handbook to accompany the product.