How to grow salad leaves

Inspired by a helpful YouTube guide. This guide draws on the GrowVeg video "How to Grow Organic Salad: Beginner's Guide", which covers variety selection, sowing, cut-and-come-again technique, and year-round production in the UK garden. GrowVeg is an excellent UK gardening channel and worth a bookmark.

1. Choose the right varieties

For the easiest growing, choose cut-and-come-again mixes rather than hearting lettuces. Mixed leaf bags sold as "salad leaves" or "mesclun" contain a blend of types — rocket, lamb's lettuce, mizuna, red and green lettuces — that can all be harvested by cutting and will regrow two or three times from the same sowing.

That said, a few headed lettuces like Little Gem or Butterhead are worth including. They take a bit longer but give you a proper centre-piece for the bowl. Grow both.

2. Prepare a seed bed or fill containers

Salad leaves are not fussy. A window box, a deep seed tray, a grow bag, or a patch of well-raked garden soil all work. If you are growing in containers, use a decent multi-purpose compost and make sure there is drainage at the bottom.

In the ground, rake the surface to a fine tilth and remove any stones or large lumps. Salad seed is small and needs contact with the soil to germinate well.

3. Sow little and often

The golden rule with salad is succession sowing: a small pinch every three to four weeks rather than a big batch all at once. That way you always have something at the right stage for cutting and you avoid the all-or-nothing glut that comes from one large sowing.

Sprinkle seed thinly across the surface and cover with a very fine layer of compost or vermiculite. Water gently and keep moist until germination, which takes five to fourteen days depending on temperature.

4. Shade and water in hot weather

Salad bolts (runs to seed) quickly in heat. In summer, choose a spot with afternoon shade or cover rows with shade cloth. Water every couple of days in dry weather — drought stress is the fastest route to bitter, bolted leaves.

Slug damage is also worse in warm, damp conditions. Copper tape around containers, grit on the soil surface, or nightly slug patrols with a torch all help. Slugs really do love salad.

5. Cut leaves, do not pull

Harvest by cutting the whole row to about 2–3cm above the soil using scissors or a sharp knife. Leave the stumps in place — they will regrow. Do not pull the plants out, even if they look spent. Most will come back at least twice.

Harvest in the morning when leaves are crisp. Rinse and dry immediately and they will keep in the fridge for a couple of days. Cut-and-come-again is genuinely one of the best small garden tricks there is.

6. Extend the season with fleece and cold frames

In autumn, cover rows with horticultural fleece when temperatures drop below 5°C at night. This keeps growth ticking over for several more weeks. Hardy varieties — spinach, corn salad (lamb’s lettuce), rocket, and winter purslane — will keep going even through light frosts.

A cold frame or unheated greenhouse extends the season further still. Sow hardy leaves in September and you can be cutting through February without much bother.

When to call a handyman

Salad is very much a DIY affair. If you need a cold frame built, a raised bed constructed, or a greenhouse assembled to extend your growing season, Richard can help with any of the practical work.