Jacqueline / Published on June 7, 2013
The appearance of summer leaves us all hungry for delicious, fresh, healthy food, such as big salads. Now I know what you’re thinking, salad is rabbit food. However, it doesn’t have to be boring, as you can add a selection of other fruit and vegetables, as well as chicken, tuna or cheese to make it a bit more filling.
Many people mistakenly refer to lettuce as salad, but in actual fact, salad comprises a multitude of different varieties of vegetable, such as lettuce, spinach, endive and cabbage. Here is how to grow salad leaves in your garden.
Salad seeds are relatively cheap to buy, easy to maintain and delicious to eat. To vary your crops, you may wish to buy a packet of mixed salad leaves. You can sow salad seeds in close proximity to each other so it doesn’t matter if your garden errs on the small side. What’s more, you should be able to re-grow the plants for up to three cuts, giving you plenty of salad.
Rocket
If you’re a fan of spice and pepper, you’ll love rocket. Start sowing these seeds from early spring until autumn but try to pick the leaves regularly to promote stronger growth. Although it grows well in many types of soil, you should also make sure you water the plants regularly.
Endive
You’ve probably seen this leaf if you haven’t heard of it; broad, crisp and curly, you’ll need to grow your endive crop in fertile soil, making sure that you water thoroughly in hot, dry weather. Snails really like munching on endive, so keep an eye out.
Spinach
A good mixture of sun and shade is perfect for growing spinach. When picking the leaves, take off the outer ones but leave the leaves in the centre to continue growing. As with endive, ensure that your spinach plants are watered regularly, particularly in dry weather.
Cabbage
Your choice of soil is not as important for cabbage. Requiring very little maintenance, cabbage is incredibly easy to grow. Plant your crops mid to late summer and it’ll be ready for picking by the time autumn comes.
Salad is delicious to eat on its own, or combined with fruits such as tomatoes and peppers and pieces of cooked chicken. However, it also works great with barbecued burgers.
You’ll find everything you need for a healthy crop of salad on Choiceful’s home and garden pages. You may even want to consider buying a barbecue grill too in light of the summer months ahead.
