Sign up now for your FREE Newsletter. You will receive a Newsletter twice a month providing tips, techniques, and fun projects for your garden. Sign up now
Sign up now.
Anyone with a window box, patio urn, or strip of soil by the back door can grow an appealing salad mix. In fact, salad greens are among the most satisfying vegetables to grow, since they usually pop out of the ground less than a week after the seeds are sown and are ready to harvest in four to six weeks. We talked with four experienced growers to find out their tricks to growing gourmet-quality greens:
Soil preparation: "Prepare your soil with plenty of organic matter," says Dale Rhoads, a market gardener in Indiana. Rhoads recommends working composted chicken manure into the soil in spring, because it slowly releases nutrients to the plants throughout the rest of the season. He also encourages gardeners to stay on top of the weeding game, because greens perform better if they don't have to compete with weeds for nutrients.
Planting: Start early greens such as spring lettuce in flats, and grow them indoors under lights until they are ready to transplant into the garden, says Organic Gardening's test gardener, Pam Ruch. "This gives me a jump on the season when I am so ready to taste a fresh salad." Later in the season Ruch uses row covers to shade the greens from the direct summer sun.
Watering: Greens grow faster, taste better, and last longer if you keep their soil consistently moist. "Once seeds are sown, tamp down the soil and gently water with a sprinkler or fan shaped watering spout," says Jared McDermott of the Vermont Herb and Salad Company. McDermott buries soaker hoses in the beds of his greenhouses. "The hoses keep the roots moist and the leaves free of soil that can be splashed from overhead watering.
Special hint: The trick to continuous salad green production is succession planting—sowing a new crop every two or three weeks. For cut and come again harvests, sow the greens in rows spaced several inched apart and harvest the greens at your favorite size. If you prefer more mature, individual plants, sow in clusters and thin out all but the healthiest seedlings. Keep planting right into the fall, as the cooler weather heightens the flavor of most greens.
The enthusiasm for "baby" vegetables tempts many growers to harvest their greens before they reach their flavor potential, says Frank Morton. Flavors develop in salad greens as they grow, so Morton allows his plants to grow to maturity. "This way, we can harvest the tender ribs from the center of each plant," he says. For cut and come again harvests, continually sample the greens and then harvest them at the stage you find most tasty. "Most leaves are harvested to fit on a spoon," says Debbie Leung, a market grower in Olympia, Washington. "I like mine to fit on the palm of my hand."
