I have just started eating my first homegrown salad of 2006 (well since last friday in fact). Just a couple of different lettuces and some rocket, grown in plugs and planted out inside an old coldframe for protection. Not much I know but its great to be eating tasty home grown for the first time rather than the bland supermarket stuff.
Its amazing though what a bit of protection can do. I put the old coldframe on the end of one of my veg beds and planted a short row of each of the salad crops I had grown. I planted the remaining plants in the open next to the frame. For the first week or so i kept the lids of the frame on but have since removed them as the weather has warmed up. As aresult i a now picking the (cut and come again) salads in the frame whils the rest of the plants are a couple of weeks (at least) off cropping.
Good eh?
Ditto - done the same (properly) for the first time this year, just kept trays on the patio in the back garden though - it is good :)
Quote from: Garden Cadet on May 16, 2006, 10:24:16
Its amazing though what a bit of protection can do.
Well done GC, I'm only just starting to appreciate what even a mesh cover can do. Watch this space for winter salads from the greenhouse when I get as organised as you 8)
And it is amazing how just a little protection can make weeks of difference! Some of my cut and come again is protected by the globe artichokes, and I am harvesting - same salad in a more exposed patch is ages away!
pretty soon I shall be using the same system to start of my courgettes. One plant should fit nicely inside the old coldframeand get off to a good start in the same way. Hopefully then I can get some earlier courgettes (thats if the slugs and snails dont get the plant first!)
Good way to make use of an old coldframe thats past its best eh?
;D
I AM SOOO HAPPY!! Because:
a) I am back on A4A (thanks Lishka)
b) On Sunday i had my first salad of leafy oriental stuff from the plot!
Conclusion? Does not take much to make me happy! Lack of A4A can seriously damage my well being!!
;)
We have had over wintered salads in the greenhouse, and frame, if things get desperate there is always Sorrel (Docks) and Land cress, first salad leaf in Ea April, sown in a window box and left in the greenhouse, unheated, all eaten now but second sowing and second cutting nearly there, and all this Oop North (Derby)! ;D
GC I used one of my old coldframes last year for 2 cucumbers, to great success. Doing the same this year, too :)
Here we go, heres a picture of what i've got:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v159/richardfiler/My%20Garden/DSCF3118.jpg)
I'v been getting the same salads from my window box, and raddish too - yummy!!
Hi All
Like the rest i have been enjoying early Radish and cut & come
Lettuce for about 2 weeks now.
Lettuce at the back of the greenhouse
(http://f3.yahoofs.com/users/42ee7be5z7063624b/1d8d/__sr_/8c19re2.jpg?phQAlaEBeREbVM6i)
Bill
Sowed a pot of long-rooted radishes in March; the first one got nibbled today.
A little skinny, but it had the right taste!
Yup its a fabby feeling ;D
ran out of bagged supermarket lettuce, so went into g'house and found some reasonable lolla rosso and little gem for salad.
Yum.
Debs
I can recommend Winter Delight (a Cos type lettuce from Tuckers) sown 25th September last year and grown in the open. I have been picking leaves since March and complete lettuces since early April. Also eating the thinnings from the over-wintered onions.
But everything else is late, out of sequence or hasn't germinated. So I'm just grateful for what is working.
Cheers
Cliff
Being a great fan of the HDRA seed library I can recommend Stoke , Bath Cos, and Loos tennis Ball as excellent cold frame winter Lettuce and if you want colour Bronze Arrow, but I am far too idle to save seed from lettuce...
;D
Thanks saddad, noted for autumn! ;D
I've virtualy been living off the stuff for the past week. Cant get enough of it. Salad with every meal virtualy.(sad or what?). Its a pity I dont have any homegrowm toatoes to go with it instead of the rather bland supermarket ones.
The plants are now though looking a little worse for wear , but as they are cut and come again types they will soon bounce back I am sure. ;D
i have grown cut and come again salad leaves for the first time this year and am really pleased. am saving a fortune not buying those supermarket expensive salad leaves.
How long should a "sowing" last before i need to sow another lot to take over.
Alit
Longer than a crop of hearting varieties I would think. Not sure depends on how much of it you use and the weather but i guess when cropping is in full swing you should think about sowing some more. You could wait until the plants start to decline, but you might end up with a gap if the old ones go over quickly ant the others arent ready yet.
I hope this helps.