Vegetable Garden Update: Too Much Salad

It’s amazing what you can grow in just a 4 foot by 8 foot area. From top to bottom in the picture above:

Escarole mix: Misticanza Di Indivie E Scarole
Lettuce: Lattuga Quattro Stagioni
Chicory: Cicoria Variegata Di Castelfranco
Dandelion Greens
Swiss Chard: Verde Da Taglio

Approximately half the bed is devoted to salad makings. Combined with another 2 foot by 4 foot area of arugula elsewhere in our yard, we’ve had a whole lot of salads this winter. Mrs. Homegrown would probably say too many salads. She’s also tired of me pointing out, each time I prepare a salad, that it’s made with fancy-pants Italian varieties.

But these greens are tasty and eye catching. Not even “Whole Paycheck” carries this stuff–you gotta grow it yourself. I got these seeds from the good folks at Winnetka Farms who run an heirloom seed store. I, pretty much, just call up Craig at Winnetka Farms and ask him what I should plant.

I grow salad greens by sowing the seeds densely in blocks and thinning as we eat. The dandelion greens and chard are started in flats and transplanted as John Jeavons recommends in his book How to Grow More Vegetables. I grow most of these cool season vegetables under a thin row cover material called Agribon-15 to keep out cabbage worms that go after the chard.

Stay tuned for more vegetable gardening updates including a few disasters.

Leave a comment

11 Comments

  1. I would avoid ‘Whole Paycheck’ assiduously in the future, if I were you.

    Take a look at what they’ve done for us this time:
    http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22449.cfm

    Looks like growing your own is going to become more and more important. I’m glad that this is the year that I committed myself to saving seed and have only ordered open pollinate seed. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s Italian or not, just as long as Monsanto didn’t have a hand in it.

    Take a look.

  2. Thank you on the tip about starting the dandlions and chard indoors. I have not had any luck starting them outside. I think I need to check out that book as well.

  3. Wow! your salad crops look very good. It really is a good idea to grow your own salad.Just the idea of always having salad at home can make other people jealous.

    Anyone can grow it because it’s so easy, good luck with your garden!

  4. No such thing as too much salad!! I actually serve fresh greens with breakfast every day, with some microgreens on the top.
    Greens, an egg, a bit of bacon or sausage, and at least 2 servings of fruit. And oj. I usually am good for HOURS with that. Of course, local, grass-fed, free-range, organic, etc. make it even more healthy and delish.

    I just moved back to Atlanta – I gotta get a garlic and salad bin going to prepare for the new garden onslaught this spring. 😉

  5. At least you can give away some of the extra lettuces – then when they have too much brocolli or green beans, maybe they’ll reciprocate! Can’t have too much salad!!

Comments are closed.