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Quick-growing salad container

Quick-growing salad container

BBC Gardeners' World Magazine

Published: Friday, 21 June 2019 at 1:43 pm

Follow these easy steps to grow tasty salad leaves in a trough or large pot.

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Leafy veg and salad leaves prefer cool, shady spots and grow well in pots or in a trough, so they're ideal for shady balconies and small gardens.

You can sow the seeds directly into your pot, and vary the leaves to suit your own tastes. Discover more vegetable crops to grow in shade.

Keep picking and watering the plants, and you should be able to pick them again several times. From late summer, sow winter salads such as oriental greens and grow beetroot for leaves.

Discover how to plant a quick-growing salad container, below.

You Will Need

Texsel greens (6)
Komatsuna (6)
Mustard 'Green in Snow' (6)
Kale 'Red Russian' (3)
Radicchio 'Palla Rossa' (3)
Beetroot 'Bulls Blood' (6)
Trough, or large pot

Step 1

Watering the compost

Fill the pot with multi-purpose compost and water well – you need to be sowing onto damp soil.

Step 2

Sowing the seed

Scatter a few inches of each type of seed generously right across the compost to create a mix of colour, taste and texture.

Step 3

Covering the seed with a thin layer of compost

Cover lightly with compost. Water daily, using a fine rose on the watering can, and seedlings should appear in about 10 days.

komatsuna-seedlings-2

Winter salads to sow in summer

Pak choi
Corn salad
Lettuce
Komatsuna
Winter hardy spring onion 'White Lisbon'
Mustard

Don't miss out this Winter

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