Description

Salad (Summer Salad)

Lactuca sativa

Excellent Container Plants – place by the back door for easy picking!

For Spring/Summer growing, for late Winter and late Autumn sowing  grow my Hardy Salad Mix.

Lactuca sativa, large oak-leaved blend of light green frilled leaves and leaves flushed with red. This lettuce is slow to bolt and perfect to grow outdoors during our changeable summers. Large open-hearted, plants can be harvested one leaf at a time as ‘cut and come again’.

Start seeds undercover from mid April as a follow-on crop from the ‘Winter’ salad mix.

Sowings may be done outdoors direct into pots or in the ground.

How to grow:

Cover seeds with a fine sprinkle of compost and keep moist. Seeds that are dry won’t germinate.

We will succession sow roughly every 4 weeks.

As the seeds emerge you can easily distinguish between red and green varieties choosing to grow them on separately, or mixed together, they make handsome patio containers.

Protect from wind and sun when first transitioning outside.

As the weather gets cooler in early Autumn switch back to sowing my Hardy Salad Mix.

For more detailed growing instructions join our ‘Grow-A-Long’  and for busy gardeners you can now plan ahead with our Spring Grow-A-Long Handbook.

Details:
Variety:  Lactuca sativa
Type: Annual
Position: Sun/Part shade, sheltered, excellent in containers
Sow: Spring and Summer
Germination: Quick. 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.
Seeds per packet: 500

Harvesting:

Pick as and when you need it, fresh, crisp and full of vitamins. No soggy salad!

You can pick baby leaves as soon as they are big enough to eat, a 10L container is ideal for a decent crop.

Harvest the biggest leaves around the edges leaving the middle of the plant to continue growing as ‘cut and come again’.