Salad Leaves Growing Guide
Home-grown salad leaves are quick and easy to grow, offering more colourful, diverse, and tasty options than supermarket varieties. They include a wide array of loose-leaf lettuces and other leafy crops like mizuna, rocket, mustard, American cress, lamb's lettuce, young spinach, chard, kale, oriental greens (mibuna, pak choi), endive, chicory, coriander, and sorrel. They take up little space, can be picked repeatedly as 'cut-and-come-again' crops, and provide delicious salads across seasons.
This guidance applies to the crop in general. Individual varieties and local conditions can differ.
Planting information
Salad leaves are easy to grow from seed and can be sown in the ground or in containers from spring through to autumn. For indoor sowing (from February onwards), use small pots, seedtrays, or modular trays filled with moist, peat-free seed compost. Scatter seeds thinly and add a light covering of fine compost. Place in a warm, bright location. For outdoor sowing (mid-spring to late summer), prepare the ground and sow into short drills, about 1cm deep and 30cm apart, or scatter seeds over a small area and cover lightly with soil. Sow small batches every few weeks for continuous harvests. For containers, fill with peat-free seed or multi-purpose compost, firm gently, water thoroughly, and sow seeds thinly at 1cm deep. Protect seedlings from slugs and snails. Young salad plants, grown from seed indoors or bought as plug plants, can be planted outside from spring onwards once they are about 10cm tall. Harden off plants before moving them outdoors. Plant into prepared ground or into a large container (at least 30cm wide and deep) filled with peat-free multi-purpose compost. Space plants 10–15cm apart, depending on the variety. In spring, protect plants from cold with cloches or plastic-free fleece. In hot weather, plant in a cooler, lightly shaded spot to prevent wilting and bolting, and water regularly. Autumn-sown salads can be planted in a greenhouse border to crop over winter, or in mild regions, hardy varieties can be grown under cloches or in a coldframe.
Harvesting information
Salad leaves can be ready to harvest almost all year round with regular sowing and suitable varieties for colder weather. Protect winter crops with cloches, fleece, cold frames, or greenhouses. Begin harvesting when plants are about 10cm high, typically a month after sowing in summer or a couple of months in cooler weather. Snip off a few outer leaves with scissors for a cut-and-come-again harvest, allowing more to grow from the centre. For loose-leaf lettuces, you can cut all top growth, leaving a 2.5cm stump, which should re-sprout fresh leaves. Plants eventually flower, becoming inedible, at which point they should be replaced.