No clue how that got stuck in my head that it was perennial, but somehow it did and now I am chastened to say that it's really a bloody ol' annual. Maybe I was reading up on too many perennial vegetables, and getting it mixed up with something like Good King Henry (because they sound so alike...) but I made a mistake and I apologize for my stupidity if I accidentally mislead anyone there.
Back to mâche/rapunzel though.
All in all, growing this vegetable was not so successful as I'd like, not in the 'it-didn't-grow-for-me' way but in the 'I-didn't-use-it-much-because-I-didn't-force-myself-to-eat-salads-more' way.
This is a cool weather green that seemed to grow very very slowly in the winter when it did sprout and then warm weather came upon us so quickly that this thing bolted like the dickens and got yellow-y and un-worthwhile to eat fast.
While there were plentiful little cute leaves to eat, I loathed to eat them because they seemed so tiny and though I had also heard you could eat the heads whole like some smaller lettuce varieties, the idea of extinguishing my plants in 3 bites was not very agreeable to me.
So, instead the leaves went somewhat to waste (which I hate) except for the fact that I guess that energy went into making surprise...
....SEEDS for me!
So, maybe I will grow mâche (rapunzel) again and try to utilize it better now that I can feed a whole herd of goats with the amount of seed I saved.
I noted too, when brushing up my knowledge, that you can use it in omelettes and OMELETTEs are right up my eatin' alley.
LINKS OF INTEREST:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1370492
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62221/
http://www.floridata.com/ref/v/vale_loc.cfm
