Salad Made Easy

Growing salad greens is one of the easiest ways we subsidise our food bill. Young, mixed salad leaves are very expensive in the supermarket and since we like to eat some salad every day, we could spend several pounds a week on bags of ready prepared salad.

I try to make sure we have a continuing supply of assorted lettuces in the raised beds and sow some different seeds every few weeks.  Currently we have some Little Gems, Webbs Wonderful and ruby red Lollo Rosso which are growing under cloches until the weather warms up again.  However, hearting lettuces take quite a while to mature and there is always the risk they will bolt if it there are extreme fluctuations in the temperature.

The knack with lettuce is to succession sow the seeds but even at fortnightly intervals they can catch up with each other.  I sometimes lift a few plants and re-plant them in the hope this will slow them up.  Another tip is to avoid digging up a lettuce when it is ready.  I just slice it off at the base, leaving some stalk slightly proud of the soil.  If you make the cut at an angle, the stalk is less likely to rot in the rain and will often re-grow into another lettuce.  Two lettuces for the price of one can’t be bad!

I also grow packets of speedy salad mixes in used grape cartons. There are a variety of mixed leaves to choose from nowadays and we like the oriental mustard varieties because they add a pungent, peppery flavour to egg sandwiches or omelettes.  I sow the seed quite densely and it germinates easily in peat-free compost.  The salad grows on quickly in the warmth of the greenhouse and are unmolested by greedy slugs.




salad leaves are best when young and tender

When a container is looking lush I bring it inside the house for ease of snipping and once cut, the greens often re-sprout which is a bonus.  We often get two or three helpings from each container and I usually have three or four containers at different stages of maturity.  When a container is used up, I tip out onto the compost heap, rinse out the grape container and fill it again with fresh compost and seed.  You can also grow salad rocket, wild rocket and coriander in the same way.  Today I sowed some Bull's Blood seed and this produces lovely, deep ruby red leaves which taste of beetroot.

Even with the cost of the seeds and compost, I reckon we save £50 a season on salad greens and they add interest and texture to salads during the spring, summer and autumn.