Thursday wasn't too bad a day again. Dry and reasonably mild for the end of November. A little bit of sunshine brightened up the day.
I thought it was about time I updated how our indoor (greenhouse) winter salad bar was doing. Unfortunately the answer is not very well. It certainly is not a success story at the minute and I can’t see things improving much as we head into winter.
From top to bottom - Spring Onions, Spicy Mixed, Mesculan, Mizuna and Radish
All sown on 01 October 2015
From left to right - Spinach, Mustard and Wild Rocket
All sown on 21 October 2015
We've sown three large salad bags only one of those looks like producing any worthwhile leaves at the moment. Our Winter Density lettuce plants seem to be growing better than the mixed varieties of salad leaves, radishes and spring onions.
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I haven't sown any seeds specifically for Winter harvests, but many of my Summer / Autumn salads are still going. I have just been out putting some cloches over them to prolong their usefulness.
ReplyDeleteOur salad leaves in our outdoor raised bed have survived the little bit of frost and are still supplying us with some leaves. The idea was that the greenhouse crop would provide a successional crop. We had some lettuces on the plot but I don't know yet if they survived the frosts.
DeleteLast year I copied a book I read and tried sowing hardy autumn salad leaves to grow through the winter in my plastic cold frame - however they took for ever to germinate and grew so slowly that there was never enough for a picking. Sadly they were just not worth the effort involved. My best success was an uncovered outdoor autumn sowing of wild rocket, which is incredibly tough and seems to grow no matter what the conditions.
ReplyDeleteI think I've come to the same conclusion that the idea of growing winter salads isn't that easy. Even our wild rocket isn't making any effort. I think I might try sowing seeds a bit earlier next year. I'm not sure where I will sow them so that they can grow on a bit, before they are planted in the greenhouse beds, and before the dull autumn and winter weather arrives.
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