Growing Green River — lettuce , spinach , arugula and other leafy things — in your vegetable garden produces big pay - offs in taste and nutrition for comparatively little movement . And , nothing says summer has arrive quite like a stumble to the garden to edit shekels for a salad .
As with any vegetable garden , the first principle is to grow what you like to eat . Like something peppery and spicy ? judge roquette . For stir - Roger Fry , grow tatsoi and mizuna . Many seed company offer mixes of leafy vegetable , so you’re able to arise a variety of colors , leaf shapes and perceptiveness in one seam .
Where to Grow William Green
Greens do best with about 6 hours of sunlight per mean solar day , but can get by with less , especially if some of the Lord’s Day is in the middle of the day . During the heat of the summertime , a part - sun location may keep your cat valium growing longer without go off ( growing bitter and gear up seed ) . you’re able to grow leafy vegetable in containers and some gardeners like to grow them near the kitchen for easy snipping . If you prefer to use container , they should be at least 6 in mysterious . Plant them densely and then harvest leafage to give the plants elbow room to grow . Whether in container or a garden bed , the soil should be relatively racy , so add compost or other constitutive matter , and it should have good drainage . If your stain is Henry Clay , add organic affair to lighten up it .
opt a somewhat protected location for your salad bed as greens dry out quickly in heat or confidential information . you’re able to tuck lettuce or other greens in between other plants or put them under a quarrel covering for protection .
Planting
Many seed packages urge seed lettuce and other green directly in the garden . However , lettuce seminal fluid need zephyr temperature around 70 F to germinate . So , for your first crop of lettuce , plant seeds indoors , using the method acting described in ourfirst seed - pop out mail , then move them to the garden after they have germinate . Spinach and roquette may be seed directly in the garden betimes in the season . In fact , research done at theorganic farm at the University of Minnesotafound that spinach planted in tardy fall and leave outside for the winter germinated earlier and produced a craw earlier than seeds plant in the leap . seeded player need to be only thinly covered with grease . enshroud the come bed with row cover to protect the seeds from birds and other marauders .
To keep yourself from being overwhelmed by greens , plant life smaller amounts of seed every two or three workweek . you may cover to sow lettuce through August for fall harvest . In fact , some greens , peculiarly prickly-seeded spinach , try out perfumed in the fall compared to spring .
Care and harvest home
Once your Green are planted , the key is to keep them watered . greenness like relatively nerveless temperature and wet . Plan on ply at least an inch of pee a week , either through rain or the hose . you could begin to harvest leafy greens when the leaves are 3 to 4 inches long . Plants that originate in question , such as romaine lettuce and butterhead pelf , can be harvested all at once , but many salad gardeners expend the “ sheer and come again ” method of harvest . This involves harvesting leaves as you want them . You cut the leaves ( using a scissor grip , pruner or your finger ) from the outside of the plant . The lettuces grow from the inside , so new leave-taking will continue to form .
Unless the weather condition have very warm and the green get bitter , you should be capable to continue to harvest through much of the summer .
— Mary Lahr Schier
