Summer Salads - Grow Your Own Wants Your Advice!!

[Earthbabe]

If you can get there most days hazel you should be ok. It also depends on what lettuce and salad varieties you plant. If you sow chinese leaf and we get a hot dry summer again it will bolt, however my green oakleaf was quite slow to bolt. Rocket can bolt too in dry heat but you can slow that down with watering and not growing it in pots.

[gunners71uk]

beetroot leaves when little are nice i think that the gardening gurus amongst us should tell us what are edible leaves on other crops which can be used in salads,
regards dave

[Alice]

The radish leaves Gunner, and baby turnip tops are nice.

[Lesley Jay]

Momol. I have found a seed supplier who deals in lots of varieties of ice plant including Crystallinum Mesembryanthemum. I hope the link works!

http://www.b-and-t-world-seeds.com/c...20crystallinum

[nick the grief]

Oh gosh! As a newbie allotment holder (Nov 06) I just assumed that I'd put all the salady stuff in with reference to the Plan and it would give me all that I need!

But reading this thread, as the Hill is a car ride away for me too, I hope that growing the salad down there will be ok (ref: bolting lettuces) - especially as there should be no difficulty popping down there most days.

At home I have a courtyard garden, and anything that looks vaguely like earth, my 'orrible cats make a beeline for - strawberries in trenches have not been a success for this reason! So the growbag-on-the-patio etc. is also out!

I am, however, reading all these excellent tips with great interest - and hope to be able to adapt at least some to my situation.

Can you find room for a raised bed at home hazel? thats what I normally do, then I can just nip out in the morning & cut a lettuce before I go to work to make the sarnies

[rutters]

Samphire hmmm!

How would I go about growing samphire? Can you get seeds anywhere?

[Michelle]

Our salad didn't do too well last year, although as we both work long hours our style tends to be to plant stuff and let it do it's own thing, so maybe we should have looked after the little leaves a bit better!

Anyway, today I bought a couple of little trough style planters for about 99p and was planning to grow our salads from scratch on our windowsills, starting now.

Does anyone know if that will work!?

We live in a flat (no garden or balcony) and no greenhouse or anything at the lotty, so I thought the windowsill might be my best bet for a nice daily salad.

[Alice]

Mixed salad leaves and rocket will do fine there Michelle, but choose a widowsill which doesn't get blasted with sun. If you have a very sunny windowsill peppers and chillies will grow fine there. If you want a few seeds, PM your address.
What are you growing at the lottie?

[Michelle]

Thanks Alice, we've got loads of salad seeds from last year so I'll plant a few of each and see how we get on. I'm not sure how much sun our windowsills get, it'll only be our second summer here so trial and error I guess.

We've got all sorts of stuff growing at the moment - garlic, onions, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, a little apple tree, rhubarb, cauli, broc, cabbage and spring onions.

I sorted out all my seeds last weekend, leftovers from last year, seeds from GYO offers and some bits and pieces from the seed swap at the whitchurch potato day. I'm very excited about getting it all going now, just need to find the time to do it properly! Hoping to get a lot of it started in my nan's greenhouse this year.

Michelle

[Earthbabe]

How would I go about growing samphire? Can you get seeds anywhere?

Hi rutters, I got my rock samphire seed from Nicky's nursery

http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/

There are some brief instructions on the pack. It has to be sown autumn or spring I think.

Having said that I'll probably go and look at the packet and find I've missed the boat.

[momol]

Thanks LJ, I will give it a try.

Momol

[Alice]

Good luck with that Michelle. Hope it all comes to fruition.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Can you find room for a raised bed at home hazel? thats what I normally do, then I can just nip out in the morning & cut a lettuce before I go to work to make the sarnies

Thanks for this, Nick - I could give this a go as long as I can keep the cats off - I think some experiments with netting are in order! Perhaps a sort of chickenwire cloche that I can lift on and off.......?

[nick the grief]

No probs, You could go for some closer spaces ones as well like Little Gem or Blush.

Have a look on the square foot website for ideas

http://www.squarefootgardening.co.uk/

[greenlung]

Carrot tops are yummy in a stir fry ; ) Rocket was one of the best things I grew on my new allotment last year..it's still going / growing !