How do I grow salad leaves?

Salad leaves are the best return on effort of anything you can grow: fast, forgiving, expensive to buy, and mostly wasted when bought in bags. Cut-and-come-again varieties regrow two or three times from one sowing, and a windowsill is enough.

What you'll need

• Cut-and-come-again salad seed
• Shallow pot, trough or tray with drainage
• Peat-free compost
• Scissors
• Fleece for early or late sowings (optional)

Step by step

1. Fill a shallow container with peat-free compost and firm it lightly.Salad has shallow roots — 10–15cm of depth is plenty. Drainage holes are essential.
2. Sow thinly across the surface and cover with about 5mm of compost.Thinly matters — crowded seedlings grow weak and are prone to damping off.
3. Water gently with a fine rose and keep the compost consistently moist.Never let it dry out. Salad bolts or turns bitter when stressed.
4. Place somewhere bright but not in scorching midday sun.A windowsill, a sheltered patio or a bed with some afternoon shade. High heat makes leaves bolt.
5. Thin the seedlings if they're crowded, and eat the thinnings.They're perfectly good micro-leaves rather than waste.
6. Start cutting at about 10cm, with scissors, 2–3cm above the compost.Leave the growing point and it regrows. Pulling the whole plant ends the harvest.
7. Feed with a diluted liquid feed after the first cut.The compost's nutrients are largely used by then, and feeding is what enables the second and third cuts.
8. Sow a fresh batch every two or three weeks.Successional sowing is what turns a one-off crop into a continuous supply.

Tips

• Mixed 'salad leaves' packets give variety from one sowing and hedge against any single type bolting.
• Rocket, mizuna and mustard grow fastest and tolerate cooler conditions; lettuce is slower and more heat-sensitive.
• In summer, sow in a spot with afternoon shade — heat is what causes bolting and bitterness.
• Under cover or on a windowsill you can grow salad almost year-round in a temperate climate.

Common mistakes

• Sowing too thickly — Crowded seedlings compete, grow weak and are prone to damping off.
• Letting the compost dry out — Water stress causes bolting and bitterness, and both are irreversible.
• Pulling whole plants instead of cutting — You get one harvest instead of two or three from the same sowing.
• Only sowing once — One sowing gives a few weeks of salad. Sowing every fortnight gives months.

Questions people ask