Leafy greens thrive in a cozy spot
IT’S quite possible to pick what you toss into the salad tonight. Maybe mix some heritage ‘Green Devil’s Tongue’ lettuce with colorful ‘Red Ruffled Oak Leaf,’ or the rather flashy and trendy ‘Speckled Trout Back’ lettuce? How about the incredibly tasty ‘Merveille des Quatre Saisons’ (almost never found at markets), a butterhead lettuce with loose, tender heads colored a lovely, bronzy green?
Toss in a little arugula, curly endive, red mustard or mizuna to give it some kick. There’s no need to dash to the market, since all of these are easily grown in vegetable beds just near the back or front door.
Nothing is easier to grow in a small space than lettuces and other greens, beets, carrots and radishes. For 10 years, two small beds just outside our front door have produced enough for fresh salads nearly every night. Even though they don’t get as full a day of sun as I’d like, their productivity is amazing. It’s a veritable salad factory.
In the cool coastal zone -- where raising decent tomatoes is difficult -- it’s quite easy to grow the leafy kinds of lettuce at any time of the year. The same can be said of beets, carrots, radishes and all those peppery greens that come in European mesclun mixes.
Farther inland, there’s time for one last spring sowing, though clever inland gardeners grow them even in summer by providing a little shade and an occasional cooling spritz from the garden hose.
To keep the lettuces and greens producing year-round, simply make successive sowings a month or so apart so there are always some new greens. You’ll find that the so-called “cut and come again” types -- what markets sell as “baby lettuces” -- are best topped two or three times and then taken out. Others are tastiest when left to mature into small, loose heads. All vegetables need regular irrigation but lettuces absolutely demand it. Enrich the soil with compost at planting time or fertilize lightly when plants are several weeks old. When lettuces start to “bolt” (send up seed stalks), it’s time to take them out.
Don’t waste your time trying to grow the solid head lettuces commonly called “icebergs.” You can’t compete with what the markets carry, so if you like this kind of crunch, buy a head and mix it in. The same could be said for spinach, which is difficult to grow except for a short time in early spring.
Lettuces and other small salad vegetables have virtually no diseases or pests, save slugs and snails. However, finding a slug in your salad is a meal-killer, to say the least, and the only thing worse is finding only half a slug. That’s why we grow our greens in beds raised about 6 inches above the ground.
Beds can be of any length but 3 feet wide is about maximum if you hope to reach into the middle. The beds are made of sturdy 2-by-10-inch redwood boards nailed together. Adding organic amendments fluffs up the soil but the beds may need some additional soil. Douglas fir won’t last as long but works for a while. Don’t ever use railroad ties or most kinds of treated wood, which can leach potentially harmful chemicals into the soil.
Our beds also have a copper strip wrapped completely around the top edge to keep out slugs and snails. These slimy gastropods are reluctant to cross copper and some strips have sharp fold-over tabs that further deter them. The strips are hidden under a 2-by-4-inch lumber cap to protect hands from the copper edge.
We’ve recently added some movable cage-like covers to keep out squirrels, which find these beds the perfect place to hide the peanuts given to them by sadly misguided neighbors. It’s safe to remove the cages once the plants cover the soil.
