13 August 2011

Salad Box

Earlier in the year, I sowed a variety of cut-and-come-again salad leaves in a shallow fruit box. All was going well and I was getting a few side salads a week. However, in midsummer, our landlord decided the roof needed resurfacing, and all the plants had to be taken into our sitting room. The salad leaves were the worst affected by their time in the relative darkness, and by the time they could go back outside, they had been decimated by a plague of green fly, and soon died.
I sowed some more as soon as possible, and here the results:



I'm not entirely sure what I've got going on in here, but I think far left is Red Salad Bowl, with one or two Lollo Rossa mixed in, then Cos Freckles. Next is what I think must be Red Salad Bowl again, only with darker red leaves, followed by Green Salad Bowl on the right. In between are the scattered seeds of Winter Mix, containing Mustard Red Frills, Kale Scarlet, Kale Blue Curled, Mizuna CN, and Rocket Dentellata.
This box alone provides more leaves than I can keep up with, particularly if the weather is sunny. Mizuna and Mustard are borderline unstoppable, so another time I would sow a lot less of this seed mix. The upside is they germinate super fast, and should carry on into the winter if given some cover. The Mustard and Rocket get a stronger taste as they go to flower, so I will remove them at this point.

I can't recommend growing leaves enough, you get so much food off them, really fresh and really cheaply. Love it.

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