Growing Your Own Salad Greens –
A Tasty Outdoor Project

If you’re a salad lover, this is the project for you! Fall and spring are the perfect time to try your hand at growing some delicious salad greens. Salad greens are easy to grow from seed, and make a perfect addition to your garden. And, if you’ve never gardened, salad greens are a great way to start. One of the greatest things about adding these little beauties to your garden is that there are so many to choose from. You can grow a whole variety of salad greens in a fairly small amount of space. Your salads will never be the same!

Most salad greens are cool weather vegetables, so you need to grow them in the spring and fall. For fall growing, they are best planted once daytime temperatures get out of the 80’s, but if you live in an area where this doesn’t happen until October, you can start the seeds indoors to get a faster start. If you plant them a bit early, while temperatures are still in the low eighties some days, just be sure to plant them where they will get some sun, but are shaded during the hottest part of the day. In spring, you can plant them as soon as the soil can be worked.

Salad Greens Are Easy To Plant

To plant salad greens, work your soil and amend it with compost and a small amount of lime. Just sprinkle your seeds on top of the soil, and cover them very lightly with soil. The seeds are tiny, so some people mix them with sand so that they can see where they’ve planted. Water them lightly; they should germinate in about a week. When they start to grow, thin them out. Keep them thinned so that the plants don’t touch, and keep them watered well. After your initial thinning, you can use the greens you thin out. This is one of the best things about salad greens – you can harvest them very young, most once they reach about six inches tall, and they will keep on providing until the weather gets too cold, or hot, for them. You do need to be very careful about weeds, though. Weed regularly to keep your beds clean. You can’t use herbicides on your salad greens; so keeping ahead of the weeds the old-fashioned way is critical. When it’s time to harvest, simply cut or tear the leaves from the plant, wash gently and drip dry. Then store in the refrigerator in a zip lock bag.

Try Growing In Pots

If you don’t have the garden space, you can try growing salad greens in pots indoors. You will need to use fluorescent lights, with at least a 40-watt bulb in order to get them to grow properly. Keep them about two inches from the bulb for 8-10 hours a day. Most salad greens will grow in six to eight inch pots.

What Are The Best Salad Greens To Grow?

There are a variety of salad greens that are tasty and easy to grow. Try some of these listed below, or shop around in seed catalogs to find others. Mesclun is very popular, usually referred to as spring greens or spring mix. However, mesclun means many different things to different people, so here we will talk about other greens, some of which may be called mesclun by some people.

• Purslane – (portulaca oleracea) –Purslane is a succulent, originally grown as a food crop in India. It is often found as a weed in your yard, however there is a cultivated variety. The stems and leaves have a sweet-sour flavor that is great in salads, but this green works well in soups, too. The time from planting until harvest is about six weeks.

• Leaf lettuce – Leaf lettuce is one of the easiest greens to grow, and is the most popular. It thrives when the temperatures are between 60-70 ° F. It comes in two types, green leaf and red leaf, and there are multiple varieties of each. Many types of leaf lettuce can be harvested as little as 26 days after planting. Be sure to water leaf lettuce frequently and lightly. Try Red Fire and Grand Rapids varieties.

• Romaine – Romaine lettuce is also very easy to grow. It forms an elongated head, and produces leaves that are great for sandwiches as well as salads. Green Towers is a great variety, as it will be ready early, but try Paris Island, too, because it will last the longest.

• Arugula – Arugula is an aromatic salad green, sometimes known as rocket, popular in Italian cooking. Folklore has it that arugula was used as an aphrodisiac in ancient times. If the weather gets too hot, arugula will go to seed easily, but other than that; it is as easy to grow as leaf lettuce. Harvest early, as the older leaves tend to be tough. You can use the flowers in your salads, as well. Sow every 20-30 days to have arugula for several months.

• Dandelion – Many people associate dandelion with weeds from your yard. But, they are actually quite popular in salads. The leaves are slightly bitter; they should be harvested before the plant blooms to avoid being too bitter. They are very hardy plants, just sow the seeds and keep them watered well.

• Cress – The peppery flavor of cress is wonderful in salads. There are several varieties, including watercress, which is often used as a garnish. Cress grows well in cool weather. Be sure to use cress quickly after harvesting, as it highly perishable.

• Bibb Lettuce – Bibb lettuce is known as a butterhead lettuce, and it’s one of the most flavorful. It’s also one of the most expensive to buy at the grocery store, which makes it even more attractive to grow at home. It likes cool weather too, and will produce in abundance all long as temperature suits it.

• Corn Salad – Also known as lamb’s lettuce, or mache, by the French, who use it extensively in salads. In the US, it’s highly regarded as a weed most often growing in cornfields. It grows a bright green, and is one green that will produce throughout the winter in most areas. It is best harvested young, as the older leaves can be bitter.

As you can see, there are lots of salad greens you can grow easily at home. If you’re just starting out, try one or two mild lettuce types, like leaf lettuce and bibb lettuce, with maybe one or two more aromatic and peppery varieties like arugula and cress, for example. This combination will provide the makings of a delicious salad. Then, see which ones work for you, and make adjustments at the next growing opportunity. You’ll find that soon you have fresh greens for salad almost all year long!

About The Author

Julie-Ann Amos is a successful writer and gardener extraordinaire. Her gardening passion is displayed in her numerous articles including growing salad greens, and best salad greens such as Bibb lettuce. Her articles offer new tips and insights for better planting and growing.