Trying to persuade young children, and some older ones, to eat fresh vegetables can sometimes feel like an uphill battle. So several years ago I started to grow some of my own. I'm not sure the kids are any more enthusiastic but I certainly enjoy the whole thing. I don't have a very big garden but I did have some space at the back of my garage which became more useable when I had to have two trees taken out.
My veg patch is not very big and the soil is good old clay with lots of stones for good measure. The stones make for rather unusual shaped carrots but that is another tale. One of the simplest and most rewarding crops I've found is mixed leaf salad - the sort of thing you can buy washed and in a plastic bag at the supermarket. This is so easy to grow even in my poor soil no one should have an excuse not to. There is no need for a specific veg garden. The plants look quite pretty so they can also be grown in amongst your flowers or in a tub on the patio or a balcony.
I am again this year going to grow Johnsons mixed salad leaves. Johnsons have been producing seeds for over 100 years and I have found their seeds to be of consistently high quality. They do not publish a seed catalogue but there is a full produce list available on line (address below) from which you can place an order. I bought my packet in a Sainsbury's supermarket but they are also widely available in garden centres and similar. This single packet of 1200 seeds (yes 1200, not a typo) cost only £1.79.
The packet contains Catalogne, Cocards, Lollo Rossa, Grand Rapids, Rossa di Trento and Red Salad Bowl in equal quantities. This is a combination of mainly mild and some slightly spicy leaves with a mix of red and green colours. Green salad leaves contain some vitamin c, iron and zinc which we all need as part of a healthy diet and virtually no calories so we can eat as much as we like so long as we go light on the dressings! One bowl full of leaves counts as one of the five recommended portions of fruit and veg although I'm not sure I eat quite that much in one sitting.
Catalogne is a large, brilliant green, oak leaf shaped lettuce with a delicate, nutty taste. Cocarde is a red oak leaf shaped lettuce with a sweet taste. Lollo Rossa has a red frilly leaf which is sweet and slightly mustardy. Grand Rapids is light green, wide leafed with frilly curled edges, with a mild, sweet crisp taste. Rossa di Trento has broad green leaves fringed with red. It is a crisp and sweet lettuce. Red Salad Bowl has a red frilled leaf with a sweet, mellow taste.
The seeds come in a shiny paper packet with a picture on the front of the cut leaves in a bowl together with a stuck on 'free' label to put in the ground to mark out your planting. In my opinion the label is too small and will soon become lost but I use lolly sticks anyway so this doesn't bother me.
On the reverse of the packet is a description of the product which they call 'Lactuca sativa' and the blurb that you can grow your own mixed leaf salad with different shaped colours, textures and flavours. There are instructions for sowing, more about that in a moment, and company details i.e. Johnsons, Newmarket, Suffolk, CB8 7QB, www.johnsons-seeds.com and a 'sow by' date of two years hence. It is possible to order direct from their web site.
Inside this packet is a smaller plain white paper sachet which contains the seeds. Just tear off the corner and pour then into your palm. Do not sneeze at this point as they are so small you will have to go and buy some more. The seeds themselves are small and oblong about 3mm by 1mm. They are of various shades of brown which is not surprising as there are 6 different varieties in the packet.
Growing instructions - this is so easy. Sow out of doors between March and July in a fairly sunny position. The packet says sow in a seed bed but I don't have any specific seed beds so I put them straight in the ground in little furrows. To sow you just need to have a small pile in the palm of one hand and take a pinch with the other hand and drop the seeds slowly along the furrows. Then cover then with as little soil as possible - about ½ inch and firm gently. They need to be kept moist, so if there is no rain you do need to water. Be gentle though otherwise these little seeds will be washed away. The plants start appearing about 7-14 days later. When you can identify the individual plants thin them out so they are spaced about 6 inches or so apart. About a month later you will have plants that are around 6" tall and are large enough to start harvesting, in other words eat. Pick individual leaves from the outside of the plant but not from the main growing centre and this encourages new growth.
I usually leave it 2-3 weeks before sowing a second row so the plants are not all at the same stage at the same time. They only need an average amount of sunlight so you don't need to find a particularly sunny spot. There is no need to add any fertilizer to the soil as I find the plants seem to thrive perfectly well on my ordinary quality soil. Occasional pests are caterpillars and slugs but they both wash off easily so I don't stress too much about the odd one or two.
It is as easy as that. I'm not going to tell you what salad leaves taste like as I have described them individually above, suffice to say they taste better and, of course, fresher than those you buy washed and in a bag from the supermarket; and my whole packet of seeds cost only £1.79. This is not much more than you would pay for one bag of salad from the supermarket which will last a couple of days but these plants will keep you going for at least 6 months or, if autumn is particularly mild, then even longer.
I have never used all of a packet of seeds, so unless you have a very large area you want to sow and then eat an extraordinary amount of salad leaves I think it is rather nice to share these seeds with two or three friends.
So to summarise: you don't need much space as a pot on the patio will do, you do not need high quality soil, they are easy and quick to grow, you will have fresh salad leaves for 6 months and it will only cost you £1.79. Also, there is that satisfying feeling of eating something only minutes after it has been picked and knowing it has no pesticides or other nasties added.
Go on, give it a try and thanks for reading.
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