Description
Salad (Hardy) ‘Spicy Mix’ (Autumn Growing)
Excellent in pots!
Lots of seed (500), plenty for hundreds of salads over multiple sowings!
This salad blend is so much nicer than anything you can buy. It’s the tastiest of all ‘home grown’ varieties in my opinion as well as being frost hardy! ‘
Home grown salad is ‘delicious when picked fresh. If you have never tried it, now is a great time to start when good quality salad gets difficult to find, and very expensive. Pick as and when you need it, fresh, crisp and full of vitamins, no soggy salad!
We can start sowing this mixed blend as the summer heat cools down in Autumn, late Winter and Spring. These leaves are available to you ‘all in one single packet’ they all need similar growing conditions. Sprinkle and go!
How to grow
The germination is excellent. I prefer to sow either in cells (1-2 seeds per cell) or, for an easy life, sprinkled straight into a large pot ready to pick from. They make handsome patio containers.
Light aids germination do not cover seeds with soil.
As the seeds emerge you can easily distinguish between varieties, you can chose to grow them on separately or mixed.
You can pick baby leaves as soon as they are big enough to eat, a 10L container is ideal for a decent crop.
While it’s still warm, you can sow placing pots by the back door for easy picking. For a later crop, a greenhouse is warmer and will help plants carry on producing for longer.
In late winter we will simply do the reverse, sowing and growing undercover for faster growth before moving pots outside again as the weather warms up, this will prevent plants getting too hot. Stressed plants will bolt to flower in preference to producing tender leaves.
Extremely tolerant of cold damp conditions, you will find it difficult to kill plants, however they might get eaten. This is why I prefer growing in containers.
In the open ground, everything from slugs to birds help themselves to your salad.
Elevated in pots keeps leaves clean, reduces slug and snail damage and keeping close to the backdoor will discourage bigger wildlife with the traffic and smells of family life.
10-15L container is ideal for a decent crop.
For more detailed growing instructions join our ‘Grow-A-Long’ and for busy gardeners you can now plan ahead with our Autumn Jump Starter Handbook
Details:
Variety: Rocket (Eruca vesicaria subsp. sativa), Pak Choi (Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis), Mizuna (Brassica rapa var. niposinica), Mustard (Brassica juncea).
Type: Hardy Annual
Position: Sun, sheltered, excellent in containers
Sow: Autumn, Late Winter and Spring
Germination: Quick and excellent. Light aids germination do not cover seeds with soil.
Spacing: 10cm or sprinkle thinly – you can always prick out any seedlings that are too close.
Height: 35-40cm
Seeds per packet: 500
