Winter salads

How to keep your vegetable garden producing a continuous supply of salad crops throughout the autumn and on into winter

Winter salads are a great way to keep your garden productive through the winter months. At this time of year you can make last-minute sowings of quick-growing crops, such as spring onion, beetroot and radish, as well as winter lettuce and oriental greens, including Chinese cabbage. You don’t need an allotment, vegetable garden or even a greenhouse, since you can raise a few plants in any size plot.

 

Winter lettuce August sowings of winter lettuce using a mildew-resistant variety, such as ‘Arctic King’, will produce usable crops from October until December. You will need cloches to keep them growing when the weather cools in autumn and to protect them from frost later in the year. Alternatively, plant lettuce in a coldframe for a reliable late-autumn harvest. If you have a greenhouse, you can sow a winter crop to fill borders and growing bags vacated by summer crops of tomatoes and cucumber. Choose a variety of winter lettuce that’s been specially bred to heart-up during the cooler, short days of autumn and winter. You can sow direct, or in pots and plant out as soon as the previous crop has been cleared. These will provide crops over the festive period and into the New Year. You can then have follow-on crops, sown in pots during September, ready to plant out as soon as space becomes available to provide harvests by the end of March.

Radish You can sow radish outside right through August and expect decent results if you cover rows with cloches when the temperature cools during early autumn. Even later sowings can be made under a coldframe or in a cool greenhouse border to extend the cropping until Christmas. There is still time to sow the monster-rooted winter radish for harvesting in the New Year.

Spring onions Sow a hardy variety, such as ‘White Lisbon’, this month for a crop during early spring. But be prepared to provide cloche protection to get them through severe winter weather.

Other crops Sow corn salad under cloches and grow as a cut-and-come-again crop that will re-sprout to provide tasty leaves throughout the winter months. Also sow red-leaved chicory and endive now for a crop during November and December. Blanch the leaves to turn them white by covering them with a large plate or pot with the drainage holes covered with black tape a fortnight before harvest to temper the bitter flavour. Fast-growing Chinese leaves will produce a usable crop by the end of October and into November from an August sowing.