Home-Grown Salads

Grow your own ingredients – there’s nothing better than freshly picked produce

No longer relegated to the sidelines as accompaniments and garnishes, we now enjoy salads as healthy main meals. And by adding grains, nuts and pulses to leafy veg and herbs, they’re tasty and filling, too. Here’s what to grow...

LUSCIOUS LEAVES

A variety of salad leaves,herbs and edible flowers will give salads flavour, texture and colour. Sow from mid-spring to late summer in small batches every couple of weeks to have a continuous supply.

Traditionalists will love ‘Salad Bowl’, which is the original cut-and-come-again lettuce. Include the crisphead iceberg ‘Antarctica‘, which is resistant to tipburn, bolting and mildew. Cos is a must for Caesar salads and don’t forget ‘Little Gem’.

For European-style salads, grow oak-leaved lettuce such as ‘Flamenco’, which has a slightly bitter taste; and the sweeter ‘Lollo Rosso’.

Add a kick to salads with peppery rocket, cress, and mustard leaves which get hotter as they grow.

The petals of edible flowers, such as daisies, nasturtiums and sunflowers, make any salad special.

MICRO VEG