Salad days

Make sure you are well supplied with salad veggies to see you comfortably through to winter, says Bob

- Bob Flowerdew

AS an autumn and winter approach, it’s sensible to plan ahead to have fresh salads through as many months as possible. Fortunately, the modern choice of very young and seedling leaf salad crops are really simple to grow, compared to raising, say, lettuce and radish plants to maturity.

Although a greenhouse or a walk-in tunnel would make it easier, it’s possible to grow leaf salads with a cold frame. You see, the cover is just to keep the harshest weather off and stop mud from splashing your crops, that’s all.

A homemade cold frame will do – it just needs to be a shallow box with a clear (plastic for safety) lid that can be opened for ventilation on sunny days. If you’ve no garden, a sunny windowsill will do – preferably in a coolish room, unless you fit a supplementary light, but that’s another story.