Baby Salad Leaves

Salad leaves are easy and rewarding. If you've ever been disappointed by slightly soggy bags of salad leaves you'll be in for a real treat if you grow your own cut and come again salads, or baby salad leaves. Even if you don't have much garden space you can produce a worthwhile crop of baby leaves over a reasonably long period with a little planning. They can be sown in shallow containers indoors or out. Outside use a slightly deeper container so that it doesn't dry out too quickly, indoors you could even grow them in a seed-tray. Sow in succession (i.e. sow a container-full every two weeks or so) from March to August.

Sowing baby salad leaves

When sowing seeds for baby leaf production sow them about 1cm apart, you don't have to be too accurate, just scatter them loosely over the surface of the compost and then lightly cover with a litte more compost and water lightly. Use any good organic compost, or if you've been growing other veg in containers, you can re-use that mix as salad leaves don't need particularly rich growing media. Never let the resulting crops dry out (but equally, don't leave them in soggy compost) or the leaves will be tough and bitter.

Where to grow baby leaves

Salad leaves like slightly cool growing conditions so, don't worry if you don't have a very sunny spot in which to grow them, they will be quite content in a lightly shaded spot. Harvest when the leaves are around 4cm long, by picking individual leaves from each plant, or by cutting them all back to within a cm of the soil with clean scissors. The leaves will grow back several times, so you'll get a few harvests from each batch. If you sow some a batch every couple of weeks you should have a supply righ through the summer and into autumn and even early winter if you keep them on a sunny windowsill.