We love eating a salad every day. It is fresh, crunchy, and delicious. You can dress it up in so many different ways. The variety available for the greens themselves is phenomenal. When I was growing up, it seemed the only salad green in the store was iceberg lettuce. Now, you can get numerous varieties of lettuces, kale, fiddle leaf ferns, purslane, wheat grass, pea shoots, spinach, amaranth, chives, arugula, endive, radicchio, blood-veined sorrel (right); the list goes on.
As the variety has increased in the stores, it has ballooned in seed catalogues. There are hundreds of different lettuces, greens, and salad herbs available out there.
Growing Garden Greens
Greens all have something in common. They are fed by nitrogen (stimulates green growth) and stay sweetest in cool temperatures with consistent moisture. Like most vegetables, greens do best in a fertile soil, rich in organic matter.
You can accomplish this through adding compost to your garden bed or container with a balanced fertilizer and blanketed with a mulch covering. Planting or positioning your container in a spot where it gets some sun, but good afternoon shade to keep the plant cool will prolong the sweetness of the leaves. You can also use a shade cover to keep the plant and soil temperature down. Greens do not need much sun in the summer since there is so much reflected light available to the plant.
You also don’t want the soil to dry completely out. This will stress the plant and stimulate it to go to flower, or bolt as they call it. Keep the soil moist.
