I'm a very stubborn gardener, and sometimes if my mind is made up to be in the garden, almost nothing will stop me. I suppose that's why my neighbours might sometimes see me, in the torrential rain, outside, getting soaked, weeding the garden. I actually like the feel of rain bouncing off my face, I like getting covered with mud from head to toe. It makes me feel alive. And sometimes one of my young children will join me in my madness.
One of these moments spawned the following blog, which I simply called "Rain".
http://faithfatherhoodandfood.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/rain.html
So winter doesn't reduce the time I spend growing food much - it just changes the weather and my clothes. Over the years we have trialled many winter crops. Some, like parsnip, carrot, and beetroot, effectively bank the warmth and sunshine of the autumn, packing it away into their nutrient-dense roots. These crops then simply sit there, in the giant-outside-refrigerator called winter, until they are needed. And a few other crops actually like winter weather. I find winter is the easiest time of year to grow salad greens, if you pick the right species. Tat soi, corn salad, and miner's lettuce thumb their noses at our cold wet soils, even germinating if sown in June and July. In fact, most of my garden is coming up with miner's lettuce like a rash, as a result of plants left to go to seed last summer.
On Friday I was on Radio New Zealand, being interviewed about our winter garden. Here is the link:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201803248/gardening-tim-martin
So if you haven't thought about your garden recently, it's a great time of year to plant garlic, miner's lettuce, corn salad, tat soi, and if you have a cloche or mini plastic tunnel house, lettuce and mesclun blends. And we are only eight weeks away from inside sowings of long-season summer crops, like capsicums. Summer is around the corner?
Till next time,
Tim
Showing posts with label corn salad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corn salad. Show all posts
How to grow a continuous supply of salad greens 365 days of the year
Salad greens are right at the forefront of production in our garden, be it February or July, and always having these on hand provides a significant saving for us as a family. Its also so convenient - if the fridge is empty, there is always something green in the garden to go with dinner.
Dollar value for space used, salad greens are far and away our most productive crop - they take up little space, and you can go from sowing to harvest in six weeks. After a few years of perfecting my cultivation methods, I think I can now share how to do this, based on a few simple principles.
The first is to have suitable ground, and for our family of 4, about 2 square metres of ground is all that is needed to allow us to pick 2-4 salads per week. The soil needs to hold plenty of moisture, to sustain the crop through the summer months, be relatively fine, and be well composted and limed. In practice, the soil should be roughly 50:50 topsoil and compost, worked to a depth of at least 10 cm, with a dressing of garden lime (like icing a cake) at least twice per year. Within the garden, a full sun position is OK, but if you can find somewhere that gets partial shade during the summer, that is preferable.
With 2 square metres of ground, I would have two 1m2 salad patches.
One patch is used to sow a mesclun mix (Kings Seeds, Original Mesclun mix is what I use). Sow the seeds over a finely worked patch so they fall at roughly one centimetre spacing, rake over with fingers, then press down firmly. Keep well moist at all times and the seedlings will germinate quite densely, and with a follow up weed at 4 weeks, will dominate the patch of ground for several months. Start picking after 4-6 weeks, and keep picking regularly (pull off individual leaves, or cut at 5 cm above the ground with scissors) and keep harvesting the patch until it goes to seed, turns bitter, or production drops off), then dig it over and start the process again. Sometimes I will get 3-4 months of picking off one sowing, and from one seed packet I get at least 10 sowings. So it works out as VERY cheap, fresh, convenient greens. If you use Kings Mesclun Original expect some seasonal variation - I find that in the winter, mizuna and corn salad are dominant, and in the spring, summer, and autumn, mizuna, endive, pak choi, and lettuces are the best growers.
The second patch of 1m2 is used to grow lettuces, radishes, and calendula (for the bright orange petals). Prepare the ground in the same way, and grow loose leaf lettuces like "cos", "lolla rossa" or "oak leaf". Pick them leaf by leaf, and each plant will produce for several months. By planting new lettuces as soon as old ones get pulled out, the supply of lettuce is continuous, and can cover the periods when the mesclun is between sowing and first harvest. Salads with a mixture of loose leaf lettuce, mesclun, and radish can be easily grown year round. If your garden is in the shade in the winter, like mine is, try to sow a patch of mesclun around April-early May. That way the plants can be well established before it gets too dark and wet.
If you have more space to spare than 2m2, shift the patches of mesclun around the garden to achieve crop rotation (which naturally reduces plant diseases), and why not grow some tomatoes, cucumber, and spring onions too?
Happy gardening,
Tim.
Dollar value for space used, salad greens are far and away our most productive crop - they take up little space, and you can go from sowing to harvest in six weeks. After a few years of perfecting my cultivation methods, I think I can now share how to do this, based on a few simple principles.
Mesclun patch (photograph centre) with mizuna and corn salad. Lettuces along front garden edge. Radishes germinating to right, with an old deck chair used as a support for cucumbers.
The first is to have suitable ground, and for our family of 4, about 2 square metres of ground is all that is needed to allow us to pick 2-4 salads per week. The soil needs to hold plenty of moisture, to sustain the crop through the summer months, be relatively fine, and be well composted and limed. In practice, the soil should be roughly 50:50 topsoil and compost, worked to a depth of at least 10 cm, with a dressing of garden lime (like icing a cake) at least twice per year. Within the garden, a full sun position is OK, but if you can find somewhere that gets partial shade during the summer, that is preferable.
With 2 square metres of ground, I would have two 1m2 salad patches.
One patch is used to sow a mesclun mix (Kings Seeds, Original Mesclun mix is what I use). Sow the seeds over a finely worked patch so they fall at roughly one centimetre spacing, rake over with fingers, then press down firmly. Keep well moist at all times and the seedlings will germinate quite densely, and with a follow up weed at 4 weeks, will dominate the patch of ground for several months. Start picking after 4-6 weeks, and keep picking regularly (pull off individual leaves, or cut at 5 cm above the ground with scissors) and keep harvesting the patch until it goes to seed, turns bitter, or production drops off), then dig it over and start the process again. Sometimes I will get 3-4 months of picking off one sowing, and from one seed packet I get at least 10 sowings. So it works out as VERY cheap, fresh, convenient greens. If you use Kings Mesclun Original expect some seasonal variation - I find that in the winter, mizuna and corn salad are dominant, and in the spring, summer, and autumn, mizuna, endive, pak choi, and lettuces are the best growers.
The second patch of 1m2 is used to grow lettuces, radishes, and calendula (for the bright orange petals). Prepare the ground in the same way, and grow loose leaf lettuces like "cos", "lolla rossa" or "oak leaf". Pick them leaf by leaf, and each plant will produce for several months. By planting new lettuces as soon as old ones get pulled out, the supply of lettuce is continuous, and can cover the periods when the mesclun is between sowing and first harvest. Salads with a mixture of loose leaf lettuce, mesclun, and radish can be easily grown year round. If your garden is in the shade in the winter, like mine is, try to sow a patch of mesclun around April-early May. That way the plants can be well established before it gets too dark and wet.
If you have more space to spare than 2m2, shift the patches of mesclun around the garden to achieve crop rotation (which naturally reduces plant diseases), and why not grow some tomatoes, cucumber, and spring onions too?
Happy gardening,
Tim.
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