Gardening : Fresh Salads Come From Her Patio

Mary Staton is an impatient gardener and a demanding cook. She wanted the freshest of salad greens and herbs for her kitchen, but a busy schedule precluded putting in long hours in a vegetable garden.

She found the answer to her dilemma by creating a patio salad garden. By planting lettuce, other salad greens and herbs in large containers on the patio of her Orange County home, she now has a constant supply of delectable greens and herbs, all within easy reach of her kitchen. And she accomplished this with only a small fraction of the time and labor involved in planting and tending a garden.

According to Staton, her patio salad garden has exceeded her fondest expectations. Here’s how she put it together.

Staton purchased large half-barrel containers, and had her husband, Lee, drill four one-inch drainage holes in the bottoms. She then filled the containers with a commercial potting soil. To the soil Staton added a time-release fertilizer (she used Osmocote). She placed the barrels in a sunny area of her patio.

Staton wanted to be able to move the barrels from time to time to catch the sun at different seasons of the year and to move them to shelter from Santa Ana winds. As the barrels, filled with soil, were quite heavy, she put them on container platforms with casters so they could be rolled about on the patio. Such platforms are available at many nurseries and garden centers.

Staton had read several articles on container gardening and these helped her in making her first plantings. As she was eager to make her first home-grown salad, she planted two barrels with various lettuce plants she bought at a nursery. The plants included loose-leaf, butter and Romaine plants.

In two additional barrels Staton planted seeds of various lettuces, and also arugula and radicchio seeds. In a fifth barrel, she planted basil and chives. She felt that when she had harvested all the greens from the barrels planted with the transplants, the greens in the barrels planted with seeds would be reaching the harvest stage.

Things have gone pretty much as Staton had hoped for with her patio salad garden. She notes that because she planted the barrels with a variety of greens, the different greens mature at different times and provide a constant supply. When she has harvested an entire barrel, she replants it.

Staton has also found she has to water her container plants more often than her yard plants--sometimes several times a week during warm weather. She feeds her greens with a liquid fertilizer (Miracle-Gro) every two weeks as she feels this makes the plants grow faster. Insects have not been much of a problem, however cabbage worms took a liking to her greens on two occasions. She controlled them easily with a biological spray containing BT.

Staton has discovered she can crowd her plants together in containers because of the different maturity times of the various greens. When she thins some of the more mature plants to use in salads, it gives the other plants room to grow. Staton also learned that while the plants like lots of sun during most of the year, she would have to move them to partial sun during the hottest summer days.

All in all, Staton has been very pleased with her patio salad garden. She says it is as close to hassle-free gardening as she has experienced, and the containers have provided her a constant source of the freshest of greens and herbs. It also lets her grow some of the more unusual lettuces and greens that are not available at the store.

Describing some of these more unusual greens, Staton says she likes to mix radicchio in with her lettuce and other greens because it lends a tangy flavor and a unique red color to her salads. Arugula (rocket) is another green she regularly includes in her barrels because of its peppery taste. Spinach is usually included because of its flavor and dark green color.

It is the lettuces, however, that Staton specializes in. She notes that we’re not talking here about head lettuce--it would take up far too much room in a container--but the leaf, butter and Romaine lettuces are perfect for container growing. She especially likes some of the tender European lettuces that she has discovered in specialty seed catalogues. They come in various forms, flavors and colors and add an epicurean touch to salads.

To grow the more exotic lettuces and greens, Staton orders seeds by mail from the following specialty mail-order seed companies: Nichols Garden Nursery, 1190 N. Pacific Highway, Albany, OR 97321 (free catalogues); Shepherd’s Garden Seeds, 6116 Highway 9, Felton, CA 95018 (catalogue $1) and The Cook’s Garden, Box 535, Londonderry, VT 05148 (catalogue $1).