Starting spring salad

Mid March is the usual time for sorting out salad trays and containers in the hope of bright sunny days and light showers to produce an early summer harvest. With the extreme cold weather of the last few weeks and temperatures looking low for the next two weeks, it may be a struggle this year. However, as gardeners are ever hopeful people and salad seed is cheap, it does no harm to organise a few trays.

Salads can be grown through the winter months and will produce well in mild winters. Trays planted out in October/November will often grow to a certain stage and then pause waiting to launch into full growth after winter weather. The recent extreme cold did “frost-burn” the trays leaving stunted plants and wilted leaves. With that now passed the plants are slowly starting up again.

While salad crops do not need special soil to grow they will benefit from home made compost mixed with potting soil. Old potting soil can be re-used with the addition of some natural fertiliser (seaweed powder or animal manure pellets) added in the lower half of the tray. Compost can also be sourced from community projects.

See Worms a.s.b.l. (wormsasbl.org)

At this time of year it is important the potting soil is not too cold. After the recent extreme cold potting soil left outside should be warmed up indoors before starting. Seeds are simply spread across the surface then covered with a fine layer of potting soil, then sprayed with water. Once the seeds sprout in a week or two they can be thinned out to allow plants roughly a square inch each.

The nice thing about spring sown salad is that regular rain deals with watering. It is rare to have prolonged dry spells at this time. It is worth adding extra seed into spaces once the seedlings appear just to fill out the tray. Using a number of smaller trays started over the next month should ensure a range of salads well into the summer months.

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