We eat a lot of salad. Which is just as well, when you see how much of it there is in my veg plot...
This post is aimed at demonstrating the variety of interesting and easy-to-grow salad ingredients you can produce in a very limited space. Even if you only have room for one seed-tray, you can still grow a viable quantity of salad!
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| Red lettuces, grown as baby leaf salad |
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| Oriental baby salad mixture |
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| Land Cress |
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| Rocket |
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| Celeriac - grown as microgreens |
These lettuces growing in one of my raised beds are planted far too close by normal standards, but I find I can get a decent crop this way nonetheless. Most often I pick individual leaves of lettuce rather than a whole plant at a time. If I wanted to grow good-looking specimens I would space the plants further apart.
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| The Salad bed, with Celeriac in the foreground |
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| Lettuce, lettuce and more lettuce |
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| Lettuce "Little Gem", beginning to heart-up |
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| Komatsuna "Torasan" |
Much as I would like to devote another whole bed to growing lettuce, I cannot afford the space, so some of the plants have to be squeezed in amongst some other things. They won't get as much light as they would like, but they will still produce a reasonable harvest.
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| "Delicato" lettuces growing under the climbing beans |
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| Lettuce "Marvel of Four Seasons", at the foot of the peas |
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| Curly Endive, amongst the Broad Beans |
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| Lettuces and Endives growing between the rows of Broad Beans |
OK, you've seen mine, so what salads have YOU got growing in YOUR garden...?
I don't think you can see the seeds that I put out yesterday in my raised bed below the tomato and pepper plants. Will have to wait a few weeks and see what happens then. Yours are lovely though and quite inspiring.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark, I've got salad bowl lettuce, butter crunch lettuce and romaine lettuce. Then some radishes and spinach. The baby fingerling carrots are growing at a snails pace as it's been so cold here. I think my first crop of radishes should be ready. Hm..I should go check!
ReplyDeleteJenni, you really shouldn't mention "at a snail's pace" in a comment about salads!! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteHomegrown salad is delicious and so easy to grow!
Have a great evenign!
Martin :0)
Mark, I am exhausted just reading the list of things you've sown.
ReplyDeleteConfession time - no salad seeds sown at all!
After reading that, I obviously haven't got enough salad crops growing ;>) I love the variety of leaves you've got going there - I've only got rocket, mizuna and young spinach at a stage where I can eat them, supplemented with a bit of coriander and the occasional beetroot leaf. I've got a few lettuces on the go too but they're very young, must go and sow some more salad leaves...
ReplyDeleteYou have a beautiful plot. I am so happy to have been led to it. Seeing how many herbs and plants you've grown in the small space, serves as a real inspiration for me.
ReplyDeleteGreat crop Mark - how on earth do you manage to keep the snails and slugs off them? I have lost every sowing I have done of coriander this year, though we did eat the first of the 'Can Can' lettuces yesterday, utterly delicious, and really pretty too. Incidentally, my favourite stand at the Malvern pavilion was one of quite shallow round plastic containers planted with individual salad leaves and oriental veg. beautiful and mouth watering.
ReplyDeleteWe grew them early on under the grow light in the spare room in just a cell module tray and managed a harvest so we will try the same thing over winter to try for fresh winter leaves.
ReplyDeleteHaving read this I need to be growing more varieties of salad leaves, you've got a great selection.
ReplyDeleteLOVE that!
ReplyDeleteOur lettuce are still newborn babies compare to your babies. There are about no more than 3 cm tall. Since I don't have space for them I sneaked in some under our chili plants ;-).
ReplyDeleteLovely photos!
ReplyDeleteI've got lollo rossa,little gem, pak choi, mixed oriental mustard,red and green mixed leaves,rocket, mizuna, spicey salad leaves, beetroot, spring onions and herbs all in one bed and my vegetables in the other beds - but I do like your idea of planting lettuces under the peas and beans! :)
OK, Nutty Gnome, I have to admit that your salad selection is better than mine - but then I've just had a look at your blog, and I see that your plot is about 10 times as big as mine!
ReplyDeleteRegular readers know that I am mad about VSR (Value for Space Rating), and I reckon salads in general have a prety good VSR.
Amazing selection of salad leaves, puts ours to shame, although we've sown a greater variety than last year already. Your post inspires me to find even more though... we love a lot of salads. Good VSR indeed.
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