The dark days of winter do not mean an end to a supply of fresh nutritious home grown greens. There are a range of salad plants that can be sown NOW (August) to provide winter and spring harvests.

We are currently sowing mizuna, mibuna, winter lettuce ‘Winter Density’ and ‘Valdor’, winter purslane, winter cress, spring greens, pak choi, spinach, lambs lettuce, chervil and coriander.

Winter lettuce ‘Valdor’, winter hardy spinach ‘Mikado’

Most of these crops will germinate and grow quickly at this time of a year providing early winter harvests. As the days get shorter they will stop growing. But if you protect the plants with fleece or a cloche or grow them in an unheated greenhouse, cold frame or polytunnel they will survive the darkest months and start growing again as the day length increases in the early spring.

If you don’t have any space for sowing seeds in your garden at the moment, sow the seed into modules or pots instead. Once your summer crops have been harvested the salad plants should be well established and ready to plant out.

Winter salads propagated in modules for planting out later