There is a wide variety of salad varieties, ranging from lettuce to arugula, escarole, lamb’s lettuce, and even dandelion. These are all leafy vegetables, which we can mix in a salad bowl to cook a good “salad” and which we will cultivate, in the vegetable garden, depending on the seasons, knowing that it is possible to harvest salads, almost 12 months out of 12.
Be careful, with salads, a pitfall must be avoided which concerns the risk that all the salad reach maturity at the same time and that they rise before being able to be harvested. Furthermore, the fear of all gardeners is also focused around slugs and snails, formidable devours of very tender salads! Here are some tips on timing and technique for sowing and planting salad in the vegetable garden so that you can enjoy them all year round.
Salad sowing calendar
It is possible to have salad in your garden all year round since the winter varieties generally resist up to -10°C. Sometimes, you still have to either have a greenhouse or put on a winter cover between October and May when the risk of severe frosts is high. Here are some examples of outdoor sowing and harvesting month by month:
January
- Salad to sow: lettuce, endive
- Salad to harvest: endive, lamb’s lettuce, garden watercress
FEBRUARY
- Salad to sow: lettuce
- Salad to harvest: endive, lamb’s lettuce, garden watercress, winter lettuce
March
- Salads to sow: lettuce, arugula, garden cress, garden cress
- Salads to harvest: endive, lamb’s lettuce, garden watercress, winter lettuce
April
- Salads to sow: escarole, endive, garden cress, garden cress, spinach, lettuce, Batavia, arugula…
- Salads to harvest: lettuce, arugula, garden watercress, garden cress, spinach, dandelion …
May
- Salads to sow: curly chicory, escarole, endive, garden cress, garden cress, spinach, lettuce, arugula…
- Salads to harvest: lettuce, garden watercress, garden watercress, spinach, arugula…
June
- Salads to sow: curly chicory, escarole chicory, sugar loaf, garden watercress, spinach, lettuce, purslane, arugula…
- Salads to harvest: lettuce, garden cress, spinach, arugula…
July
- Salads to sow: curly chicory, escarole, sugar loaf, garden watercress, mustard, lettuce, purslane, arugula, lamb’s lettuce…
- Salads to harvest: curly chicory, escarole, sugar loaf, spinach, lettuce, purslane, arugula…
August
- Salads to sow: curly chicory, escarole, sugar loaf, lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, arugula…
- Salads to harvest: curly chicory, escarole, garden watercress, spinach, lettuce, purslane, arugula…
September
- Salads to sow: garden cress, spinach, lettuce, lamb’s lettuce
- Salads to harvest: curly chicory, escarole, sugar loaf, watercress, spinach, lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, mustard, purslane, arugula…
October
- Salads to sow: endive, spinach
- Salads to harvest: curly chicory, escarole, sugar loaf, garden cress, garden cress, spinach, lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, mustard, purslane, arugula…
November
- Salads to sow: endive
- Salads to harvest: sugarloaf chicory, endive, garden cress, spinach, lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, mustard
December
- Salads to sow: endive
- Salads to harvest: endive, spinach, lamb’s lettuce
Note for gardening enthusiasts taking the moon into account, if they consult the lunar calendar, they will have to do their sowing and salad planting on a leafy day, but opt for the waxing moon period for sowing and the moon descending for plantations.
How to sow salads?
Salads are sown in well-decompacted and amended soil because they need humus to support their rapid development. A very bright exposure is essential for photosynthesis. However, if most salads require a sunny exposure in spring, the various salads will appreciate a light shade in the heart of summer when the sun projects its hottest rays.
When the soil has been well raked, it remains to open a very shallow furrow with a serviette, then you will place a seed approximately every centimeter or pockets of 3 to 4 seeds every 25-30cm, before barely placing them. cover. The rake will be used to seal the row. All you have to do is water generously with fine rain. Until emergence, which takes a maximum of a week, you can cover your seedling with a thin layer of fine mulch, a forcing veil, an anti-insect net, etc.
Thinning is done at the 2 true leaf stage to keep only the most vigorous plants. If you sowed in pockets, you will only keep one plant per pocket, already in its final place. The most beautiful plants removed can also be transplanted elsewhere.
Sowing in honeycomb plates, pots, or terrines is done using the same techniques, adapting them to the container. The smaller it is, the more you will have to monitor watering so the substrate does not dry out.
How to Plant Salads
If you choose to sow your seeds, whether in a nursery, in a row, in pots, in pots, or cells, you will need to thin them out when the shoots have 2 leaves formed. But you can also buy salad plants, preferably organic, from a nurseryman or garden center, where all you have to do is plant them in the vegetable garden.
Concerning the soil, it is the same as for seedlings, you must have soil rich in humus, to which you will therefore have added compost. The soil must have been worked to be loosened, and you will choose a bright location, easily accessible for regular watering, essential for good growth and to prevent the salads from rising too quickly or being bitter and hard.
When you replant your seedlings or plants purchased from a professional, wait until the end of the day to get started, when the sun sets, especially in summer. Use a dibble or a finger to make a hole into which you will slide your plant, leaving a gap of 25 to 30 cm between each.
Do not push it too far so as not to bury the collar, and form a small basin. You will need to dress the plants, that is to say, cut the leaves at around ten centimeters in height. Water generously and shade your salad bed for a few days, if the weather is sunny, using upturned crates.
Last point: hunt down slugs and snails that will not fail to come lurking or even to taste because the preferred stage, for these gastropods, remains that of the still very tender plant! Do not hesitate to set up natural traps to scare away slugs and snails while remaining particularly vigilant until your salads have reached a certain stage.
Respect a crop rotation by waiting 2 or 3 years before putting salads back in the same place in your vegetable garden: alternately, you can grow fruit vegetables, and legumes.
For crop combinations, as the lettuce grows quite quickly, it can be interspersed among crops with a longer growth cycle such as carrots, garlic, cabbage, strawberries, tomatoes, beans, and peas, but it will be necessary to keep away from other salads such as chicory. As for the latter, they will be good companions for arugula, spinach, strawberries, and cauliflower but must stay away from other Asteraceae such as lettuce obviously, but also dandelion.
If you want to know more about all the varieties of salads – lettuce, chicory, lamb’s lettuce, mesclun, etc. – and their precise cultivation sheet, refer to the very good book by Xavier Mathias Salads All Year Round in My Garden. The author is a market gardener, producer of organic plants and seeds, and trainer at the Potager du Roi in Versailles: suffice to say he knows a few things!
