It's not easy being greens.

	Post-Gazette photos A basket full of greens bounty just harvested for customers of the Silver Wheel Farm includes various types of mustard, kale and chard. Click photo for larger image. Related articles Give greens a go: Break away from the tried and true Steam or braise? It depends on the green Greens recipes More greens recipes Even more greens recipes

You won't find them topping many folks' "favorite foods" lists, much less on many restaurant menus.

Plenty of people despise them.

Or think they do.

They're certainly not french fries -- the Paris Hilton of vegetables (bad for you, but omnipresent, and Americans can't seem to consume enough).

Greens you don't expect to find at anyplace fun -- not at the Oscars, or the ballpark, or a concert. It's unthinkable that you might pull into a drive-through and order a burger and a biggie side of "McGreens."

Lori Sands has thought a lot about this, and she still isn't sure why greens -- specifically, cooked leafy vegetables such as chard and kale and mustard and spinach -- aren't in a more enviable position. But she is determined to help improve their lot.

"I think it was presented to kids as a slimy pile of something good for them," she muses, thinking back to her own childhood. "It just looked icky."

Lori Sands runs Silver Wheel Farm near Harrisville, Butler County, with her husband, Ben Shaevitz. But she's the greens revolutionary, having penned a "Greens Manifesto" urging Americans to eat more of the healthful vegetables. Click photo for larger image.

But follow her on a tour of the Silver Wheel Farm she and her husband, Ben Shaevitz, run near Harrisville in Butler County (about 60 miles north of Pittsburgh), and you get a fresh perspective on greens. In long "hoop houses" and under low row covers outdoors, they grow an amazing and gorgeous variety of greens, many of which you've probably never heard of, much less tasted. And if she's showing you around, you will taste them, right off the stalk.

There's purple Osaka mustard; and "pink lettucey mustard," pretty as a flower; and pink-veined (and most popular with her customers) napini kale; plus peppery arugula, which already has bolted into lovely white blooms. The deep green raab and the tat soi already have run their courses, too. She'll inform you that you can eat the buds as well as seed pods and hand you samples to chew.

"Now we're going to force you to eat -- what kind of mustard is this?" She decides it is bau sin. You decide it's tasty, with a cabbage flavor much milder than the magma mustard that was so hot it made you cough and cry.

Because the farm starts many greens in the fall and grows them under cover, Ms. Sands and her husband have been harvesting and selling them all winter, even when there was so much snow that they had to ski to the hoop house. Since April 7, they've been making weekly deliveries of greens to subscribers to their five-week "Greens and More" community supported agriculture plan.

	Lori Sands cuts greens for visitors. Click photo for larger image.

But for most growers, even those who got a greenhouse head start, the season is just beginning for greens -- the first vegetables of our growing season.

Starting this week, Ms. Sands and her husband will start selling them (along with eggs and other produce as it matures) at farmers markets in Slippery Rock and Grove City. And greens will start popping up as other area farmers markets open up, too.

People who actually like greens -- they're out there -- can't wait.

At the Sewickley Farmers Market this past Saturday morning, one of the few vendors this early in the spring was Cherry Valley Organics from near Burgettstown in Washington County. Evan Verbanic brought a cooler full of organic greens -- arugula, mizuna (a feathery salad green found in mesclun mix), spinach and a lettuce called butterhead. The latter two sold out in about an hour.

He and his wife, Jodi, hope to have lots more greens soon, and he says customers will devour them. "They have broader appeal now" than when the couple started six years ago. Then, "People either loved kale or loathed it," he says. "Now it seems like more people are clamoring for it," thanks in part to the growing hunger for healthy, local produce.

The label "greens" can apply to a wide range of leafy vegetables including lettuces. But the more substantial type -- many of them members of the genus Brassica, the mustard and cabbage family -- tend to be the nutritional powerhouses, packed with enough vitamin A (as well as C and K and others), calcium, folic acid, fiber and other goodness to earn many of them the label of "superfoods." They can be consumed raw as infant "micro greens" and young leaves, as well as cooked when they're more mature.

Greens are beginning to appear in area farmers markets. Click photo for larger image.

"They're so versatile that way, and so tasty," says Neil Stauffer. The manager for Penn's Corner Alliance wishes he had more spring greens to sell to the farm cooperative's CSA subscribers and restaurants. His wife, Susanna Murphy, now works for the nonprofit Grow Pittsburgh, growing vegetables in the garden and greenhouse at the Frick Art & Historical Center in Point Breeze. Her greens are being served at the cafe there as well as at Bona Terra restaurant in Sharpsburg, where the couple say greens are almost always available. That's how it is at their house.

"It's one of the few things Susanna and I go to the store and actually splurge on and buy if we don't have our own," says Mr. Stauffer. "We crave our kale!"

That's all music to Ms. Sands' ears.

She grew up (on Long Island) without encountering any cooked greens besides the frozen or canned spinach her dad ate -- an experience she knows is shared by other American children of the 1960s and since.

She knows how early settlers depended on greens, cultivated and wild, for spring nourishment. Some ethnic groups grew up eating their greens: African-Americans and others with Southern roots. Italians. Jamaicans. Some still do, as greens continue to be a staple in many parts of the world, including Africa and Asia.

But in the United States, she says, "I still don't think there's a strong greens tradition. I think it needs to be developed."

Her fellow but larger-scale CSA farmer, Beaver County's Don Kretschmann, offers that 11 percent of his customers put kale on their "never-eat short list." About 4 percent blacklist chard, along with "a smattering of other 'cooked greens' or 'bitter greens.'" (Least popular: Beets are on the "hate list" of 16 percent of his customers but also are beloved by 10 percent.)

	Lori Sands grew up without encountering fresh cooked greens. "I still don't think there's a strong greens tradition. I think it needs to be developed." Click photo for larger image.

Interestingly, Mr. Kretschmann says, 5 percent have kale on their favorite list and 3 percent put chard there.

Farmers like him try to help customers along by explaining the different greens and providing recipes. And Ms. Sands says she has converted several customers from being greens-leery to greens-loving.

But few go so far as Ms. Sands, who, after pondering it for several years, this winter penned a "Greens Manifesto."

In it, she asks why grocery shoppers bypass greens in favor of bland iceberg lettuce trucked in from afar. She describes how her farm is growing more greens, saving and giving away seeds and otherwise pushing a "greens revolution," which she believes will happen as oil prices continue to rise. As she writes, "We gleefully anticipate that the American public will be forced to eat 'yucky' greens as local greens will be both affordable and readily available."

The brief manifesto recently was accepted for publication in the July/August issue of Orion magazine.

Ms. Sands really likes greens.

Which is funny, because she didn't try them until she was in her 40s and farming. Someone cooked her some collards. Delicious.

Now she and her husband eat greens every day on salads and several times a week cooked, frequently just braised in a little oil. She says, "Greens are the ultimate fast food," which is important for them, since in addition to farming 10 acres, he's also chair of the physics department at Slippery Rock University, and she's also a high school French teacher.

She jokes that they're both "hippies," but hey, the tempeh and mixed greens cooking in the solar oven in the driveway sure looks and smells good.

She's seen different greens get trendy -- arugula, then mache -- but greens in general still are a mystery to most.

"People think a cooking green is a cooking green is a cooking green," she says. "But there are such distinct flavors."

She reaches down and plucks a leaf of senposai -- a sort of Japanese collard. "I describe it as kind of a mild cabbage with citrusy overtones."

As exotic as some may sound, her certified naturally grown greens all sell for $3 a pound, year around, except for lettuce, which goes up to $4 in winter. They look to become more widely available: Earlier this week hers incorporated with about 10 others as the Northwest PA Growers' Co-op.

Some greens come with more baggage than others: Bagged spinach, for example, still scares a lot of people, after E. coli outbreaks in California killed three people and sickened more than 200 in 26 states.

Ms. Sands would like to start a "Safe Salad Initiative" whereby she and other farmers would donate seeds or plants for community salad gardens.

Meanwhile, she's seeing plenty of positive signs that greens have a shot at being the new black. Restaurants such as Lidia's Pittsburgh in the Strip District and, more recently, Whole Foods are seeking quantities of local greens. Even more surprising, Slippery Rock's North Country Brewing Co. recently added mustard greens as a side-order option to the entrees on its new menu.

"It's the edge," says Ms. Sands. "I think it's going to be very trendy for people to eat cooked greens."

She's smiling, but only slightly, when she says, "I think they will save civilization."