Any advice on growing salad leaves for a newbie?

[blue411]

I have started out with tom plants and sweet peppers on my windowsills, but id like to try some mixed salad leaves, should i be planting these outside? I have bought a ventilated plastic tunnel, should i be using this if they should be outside???
Help!

[zazen999]

Hi
These are the easiest thing in the world to grow.

The trick with salad leaves is to sow little and often.

there are really two types; those that grow leaves and don't head up; these need constant picking or they may bolt; and those that head up.

I don't know what seeds you have. Last weekend, I prepared my salad bed; which is about 1m square. I put in beetroot around the sides in a square [some courtesy of HayWayne!] and a small [about] 6 inch square of basil, another of oregano. I already had celery flavoured parsley leaf in the centre over the winter so I chopped that back. Between the lot, I chucked in a mix of various heading salads, various cut and come again leaves, and spinach - I do this because I can pic the cut and come again leaves whilst I am waiting for the headed lettuces to grow; and also pick the beetroot leaves whilst the beets themselves grow; leaving me with an all summer crop from one bed.

Meanwhile, I will sow more cut and come again in another bed, in a month or so; to keep me going. If too many headed lettuces come up; then I'll transfer some to another bed once I can identify what is what.

I put some lime down before I planted [as I do with all my beds], and watered the lot in [although it rained the next day anyway], and will wait for the shoots to come up.

If you wanted to do something similar and put a tunnel up, you can. But I would only have it on for the first few weeks, and if it is going to snow or frost heavily. By then, spring should be in full bloom!

[blue411]

Thanks very much for the advice, its really appreciated!
P.S ive found four tomato plants with shoots today on my windowsill!
Im very excited!

[areia]

i always grow basil and corriander, parsley with my salad leaves pretty much the same method as zazen999 corriander bolts quickly i found if i start picking at the leaves earlier than i should and they grow pretty steady throughout the season indoors or out. just have to watch out for white fly though they love basil and mint, all you can do with them is either rinse off or cut back when that happens

[lainey lou]

I always grow salad leave in window boxes on my two kitchen window and have a supply through out the whole summer. It's great just popping outside 5 mins before tea to gather up a bowlful of leaves and a handful of herbs, fantastic!

[vegman]

Suttons supply a number of different blends of salad leaves eg French, Italian etc. easy to grow and wonderful to eat!

regards,
Vegman

[veg4681]

They should also do well as container grown, esp. those wider/flatter pots as salad leaves are mostly shallow root vegetables and it might even make more sense if you harvest them as baby leaves...that the more you cut/harvest often, the more they come again so also do look out for the 'come and cut again' types of salad leaves.

[Novice Gardener]

Last year I grew salad leaves in pots - first time I grew them, and the only mistake I made was to plant too much at the same time. I bought a mixed packet of seeds from Wilkos but shared them around 6 or 7 pots, but that meant they were all ready at round about the same time - on the plus side I didn't have to buy any salad leaves at all till about late September, but if I'd have put more thought into it and planted the seeds at intervals, then I could have gone on harvesting till Nov or Dec as we had a fairly mild winter down here. Still I'll know better for this year, and am planning on planting a row a week

[alinver]

Hi I made the same mistake as Novice Gardener, I grew salad leaves in pots, the black ones you see with flowers in them on petrol station forecourts(edit I cut them in half and used the top half to protect other plant from slugs ect), unfortunately I got over excited and sowed far too many at the same time and in the end I couldn't give the stuff away! Like Novice Gardener on the plus side I didn't buy salad for a whole summer off the back of 2 packets of seed.

This year I'm using the same pots but I've marked them 1 - 8 and every fortnight I'll sow one up, I've bought 4 different types of salad leaves but I've mixed them all in a small herb jar with a perforated lid I think it might be easier than shaking the packet out on my hand, I lost a few seeds in the wind last year.

As a one year newbie myself I found salad leaves one of the easier things to grow

Al

[veg4681]

This year I'm using the same pots but I've marked them 1 - 8 and every fortnight I'll sow one up, I've bought 4 different types of salad leaves but I've mixed them all in a small herb jar with a perforated lid I think it might be easier than shaking the packet out on my hand, I lost a few seeds in the wind last year.

Splendid idea of mixing all the seeds together from different packets, should be an exciting mix of salad leaves. Successional sowing at 2 weeks interval is the recommended approach for salad leaves. I've only ever grown lettuces and Chinese leaves on their own but this year will try out mixed leaves for harvesting as baby leaves, hope they'll be as good as the fancy supermarket packs.

[areia]

im loving the mixed seed idea got loads of old herb jars around yay have a use for a few now

[Phreddy]

Try the 99p or Poundland etc. Last year I bought big packets of mixed leaves - French and Italian. Also made the same mistakes of over-providing. Grew them early under a polythene cloche

[alinver]

I can't take the credit for the herb jar idea, my old gran had bad hands and my granddad came up with the idea so she could sow her flower seeds.

Al

[blue411]

Thanks for all the advice folks, much appreciated!

[Cutecumber]

Not all of the mixed packs being sold are necessarily equal.

Some contain varieties that quickly dominate - mizuna is a classic - or that go to seed before the others - such as rocket and mustard. Also, you find that there are more of some types in these mixes than the types that you might actually want!

If you want to end up with a selection of baby lettuce leaves and baby brassica leaves (we are talking mizuna, rocket, mustards, pak choi, baby kales etc) I would recommend sowing separate pots or areas. The other reason for this is that even in their early days brassicas attract different pests, and in my experience more readily, than lettuce and by separating them out you may have a bit more control. At least if one part of your seedlings fails because of rootfly or caterpillar attack, you have the other!

So, for example, I sow one pot of lettuce - a mixture of whatever I fancy - and one pot of brassicas. Once the latter get going I thin out some of the mizuna seedlings to stop them taking over the world. If I can, I protect the brassicas as rootfly is a big issue for me, and meanwhile the lettuce leaves get less tangled up and I find them easier to harvest (with scissors).

Of course, some "mixed packs" of seeds contain separate foil packets which is ideal - you can then decide how to grow them.

Sorry for the essay