Beginner's Guide To Growing Salad Leaves

Soup up your salads with lettuce and leaves that are easy, quick, tasty and cheap – a must for both novice and experienced veg growers alike, says Louise Curley

- Louise Curley

SALAD leaves are one of the most rewarding crops. They’re easy to grow, some are ready to eat only a month after sowing, and there’s no contest between freshly picked and those supermarket bags of limp leaves that languish in the fridge.

For the cost of a couple of packets of seeds, you can keep yourself supplied with salad all summer long, and there’s a huge range of colourful and tasty leaves and lettuces that will transform mealtimes. Salad leaves are also perfect for anyone who doesn’t have much space, as they thrive in containers.

If you are new to growing salad, my key tip is sowing little and often. Not only is this crucial if you don’t want to be faced with a glut, but it will also give you a steady supply of young, fresh leaves, which are the tastiest (leaves become tough and bitter with age). Sowing every three to four weeks is ideal.

Extend the growing season

To extend the growing season try growing hardy varieties in early spring and autumn. You can use fleece to provide extra protection from very cold weather or grow your salad leaves under cloches or mini tunnels.

These plants tend to like sunshine, but they will happily grow in some shade – in fact, they’ll prefer a degree of protection from the summer sun as too much heat can make them stressed, causing them to bolt (flower and set seed prematurely). They need a moderately fertile, moist soil that has a neutral to alkaline pH, so it’s a good idea to dig in some well-rotted compost before planting, to help with soil fertility and moisture retention.