SALAD DAYS ARE HERE!
Speedy leaves can be sown now for fresh f lavour all summer long
SPRING starts officially on Monday, but you don’t need a calendar to know that. For gardeners, it’s a busy time, even if most work that needs to be done now won’t bring rewards until summer or later.
But, if you’re an impatient gardener, try speedy salad leaves.
You can grow these in containers or beds. They’re nutritious, delicious and can look pretty. Flavours run from bland baby lettuce to spicy rocket, or aromatic coriander.
Edible flowers make colourful additions to salads. Options include violas, chives, borage, nasturtiums and marigold.
The faster a plant grows, the more tender it will be. So it’s important to provide the best conditions and full light for salad crops. Large, well-drained pots or troughs are fine. But, if you want to scale up, buy custom-made vegetable planters or construct raised beds.
Assorted planters can be bought from veg growers such as quickcrop.co.uk. They will also provide helpful advice.
But leafy crops will do as well in your garden soil, if it is fertile, as in fancy planters.
REPEAT, REPEAT
SALAD leaves grow at amazing speed. But yields are small and a crop is quickly used up. For fresh leaves all summer, sow seed fortnightly or every three weeks from now until September. When you resow into containers, there’s no need to replace all the soil each time. Skim off the top 5cm and add a layer of new compost. Water thoroughly and allow it to drain. Later, sow your seed sparingly over the surface and cover with a thin layer of extra compost.
Try not to let the surface dry out too much while waiting for germination. Water with a can fitted with a fine rose, and don’t disturb the compost. Seedlings will pop up quickly, but at different rates. Rocket is probably the fastest, although beetroot can take a while. But, in a few weeks, the slower leaves will usually catch up. Don’t expect vast yields from your baby greens — they’re there to supply generous garnishes rather than big bulky salads. Harvest the leaves while young, but do remember to keep resowing to ensure a supply of fresh growth.
Great plants for leafy greens include rocket, lettuce, pak choi — and also punchy radish and turnip tops.
ALL IN THE MIX
IF YOU can only grow small amounts, pre-blended mixtures are probably best. Most seedsmen offer well-balanced salad cocktails. Try marshallsseeds.co.uk and thompsonmorgan.com. The latter sells Niche Oriental Mixed, containing tangy Asian salad leaves.
If you want to include baby vegetables, try radishes, turnips, kohlrabi or spinach. When grown fast and picked tiny and tender, these can be served raw.
More unusual leaves include sharp-tasting sorrel and smaller buckler-leaved sorrel. These are perennial, but easy to grow. Red amaranth seedlings are sometimes used for colour, as are chard varieties such as Bright Lights for their pretty stems.
For extra pep, sow coriander — the fresh leaves are unique in flavour. You can also grow coriander to maturity and gather seed as spice in autumn.
Tasty greens don’t have to come from little plants. Big perennial lovage has a celerylike tang — delicious in salads, soups and stews.