My salad lover’s garden tips
- Direct sow your salad greens. It’s easier than sowing indoors and transplanting, and they pop up fast and are fast to produce—in just a few weeks.
- Re-sow small amounts right through into September in Vermont. I start my greens every two weeks–small, short rows of maybe 5 feet long. Succession sowings can continue slightly longer if salads are grown under cover—and of course in warmer zones, the timing shifts with the later frost dates.
- Be opportunistic. Stick the rows everywhere, including between other plants. Between rows of peas, for instance—plant cilantro and dill.
- Mix it up! Herbs, greens, and aromatics are must-have salad “extras” such as mint and lemon basil. I grow about 24 kinds of salad greens, rotating among an even wider palette of possibilities according to the times of the season.
- Think about creating a tapestry of colors, not all medium-green greens. The dark red of radicchio with lighter greens of butterhead lettuce are among my essentials, plus red beet green tops, ferny dill, and purple basil. Always arugula—there’s never too much arugula,
- Likewise vary the texture. Greens may be oak-like shaped or frilly edged, or the tiny, ferny leaves of chervil, which adds a licorice-like punch to the salad bowl. Edible flowers are essential.
- Purslane, claytonia, and more: Speaking of unusual leaf shapes and textures: try golden purslane with a lemony flavor, not ground-hugging like the purslane we may know, but upright in its habit. And at the cooler ends of the growing season, make room for claytonia with its tender, small lily-pad-shaped leaf, and tiny white flowers at harvest time.
- Can’t you get all in a pre-packaged seed mix or mesclun? I prefer to sow the individual ingredients since each grows at a slightly different rate, and then you can mix and match yourself.
- Don’t forget the edible flowers. I adore calendulas, and have a soft spot for borage, too, with its beautiful flowers on a stunningly tall plant—but admittedly it’s a space hog, and resows itself. I grow lots of violas and pansies, and this year all kinds of nasturtiums, trailing and otherwise. The creamy white one called ‘Milkmaid’ is a favorite.
- At harvest time, use your scissors—clipping low on the plant, or along the soil line. Leaf by leaf, then water to allow the plant to regrow if it is a cut and come again.
- Dress it with the right, light vinaigrette– to suit what goes into the salad bowl. For leaves that are soft and buttery, I’ll substitute lemon for the vinegar. A tough romaine warrants bold balsamic vinegar and a teaspoon of Dijon. Spicy blends of salad greens are sweetened with a tablespoon of maple syrup. And with bitter greens, add something creamy –such as yogurt, or crème fraiche.
