The Salad Days of Winter

When Shakespeare coined the phrase ‚”salad days” in Anthony and Cleopatra, he was referring to a time of youth and innocence. In contemporary usage the phrase means the prime or peak of one’s life regardless of age. Gardeners, perennially youthful, find peak experiences for growing in every season. Fall and winter is the best time to grow salad greens. There are fewer pest problems, lower humidity, and cooler temperatures.

Draft your family’s distinctive salad garden menu from an assortment of European, Asian, and southern greens to complement fall and winter lettuces.

Lettuce Varieties

• ‘Bibb’ – delicate flavor
• ‘Black Seeded Simpson’ – crisp, tender loose-leaf with delicate flavor
• ‘Deer Tongue’ – triangular green leaves
• ‘Four Seasons’ – gourmet burgundy butterhead from France
• ‘Freckles’ – burgundy freckled lime green romaine
• ‘Red Oakleaf’- buttery flavored loose-leaf
• ‘Rouge D’Hiver’ – red romaine turning redder in cold weather
• ‘Salad Bowl’ – sweet loose-leaf with deeply lobed leaves
• ‘Tom Thumb’ – tasty 3″ heads make a single serving

European Greens

• Arugula – peppery flavored leaves
• Chervil – dark green fernlike foliage with anise flavor
• Claytonia – mild funnel-shaped young leaves are very tender
• Cress – fast growing peppery flavored leaves
• Dandelion – tangy chicory flavored leaves when harvested young; bitter with age
• Endive – curly leaved chicory with mildly bitter flavor
• Escarole – broad leaved upright growing endive with bitter taste
• Mache – cold hardy green rosettes of leaves with a nutty flavor
• Radicchio – slightly bitter red chicory adds zest to salads
• Sorrel – perennial with lemony flavored leaf
• Spinach – easy to grow in rich soil
• Swiss chard – ruffled leaves with strong colorful midribs

Asian Greens

• Komatsuna – mild spinach mustard for salads and stir-frys
• Mizuna – ferny leaves with crisp mild flavor
• Red Giant Mustard – purple leaves with mild mustard flavor when young
• Tatsoi – dark glossy pak choi used in salads, soups, and stir-frys
• Tendergreen – smooth leaved, mild flavored mustard spinach

Southern Greens

• Beet – colorful garnish for salads
• Collard – large leaves with a cabbage flavor
• Kale – curly blue-green foliage best eaten raw when young
• Mustard – the younger the leaf the less spicy the bite
• Turnip – flavorful garnish for salads

Misticanza and Mesclun Mixes

In Europe salad greens are tools for combining color, taste and texture in culinary experiences. Misticanza salad greens are an Italian blend of chicories, pot herbs, endive, and lettuces harvested when young and tender and eaten in chopped salads.

Mesclun, originating in French Provence, is a blend of baby leaves of lettuces and greens grown for quick availability, freshness, and continuous regeneration through ‘cut and come again’ harvesting.

Mail-order catalogs offer misticanza and mesclun mixes to jumpstart your salad gardening season. If you prefer to mix and match your greens at will, purchase individual seed packets instead.

Salad Gardening Starters

Salad greens adapt to your space and growing conditions. Grow greens in raised beds and in containers like hanging baskets, saucer-shaped salad bowl planters, or five-gallon buckets. In cold climates winter greens flourish in cold frames, greenhouses, basements under light banks, and under plastic-covered tunnels.

Besides a sunny location, the single most important ingredient for the salad garden is soil. A soil rich in organic compost is the dressing on the salad.

Add a slow-release organic fertilizer to the soil before seeding. Labor Day is a ballpark date for sowing fall and winter greens well in advance of your area’s first frost date.

Succession planting will assure a continuous supply of leafy greens. Sow additional seeds about every two weeks.

Regular watering is especially important for leafy greens. On average one inch of water per week is needed.

Weave a tapestry of leafy greens into your lifestyle during the salad days of winter.