How to Sow and Grow Salad Leaves

With plenty of colours and flavours to choose from, salad leaves aren’t just for summer. Choosing the right variety means you can enjoy lots of shades, tastes and nutrients across most seasons. Whether you prefer light green leaves full of vitamins A and C or red and dark green ones packed with antioxidants and vitamin B6, salads are an easy-to-grow addition to your kitchen and garden. 

Plus, with a bit of prep and by following some tips, it’s possible to grow this small-footprint crop almost anywhere at any time.

What You Will Need

You might prefer eating salad leaves in hot, sunny weather, but these plants thrive well in shady conditions. They also have a small footprint, making them great gap fillers or temporary crops that maximise your growing space. Salads can also be grown in raised beds, pots or grow bags and do well on windowsills. By planning out your sowing schedule, you can also harvest leaves for most of the year.

Choosing Varieties of Salad Leaves

There are a huge number of plants that are classed as ‘salad leaves’. Anything that has edible leaves can be put under this category, including loose-leaf lettuces, edible flowers and baby greens. To narrow down the best variety for your garden, a good starting point is looking at the growing season, as some will do better in colder or warmer conditions. 

From this, you can build a shortlist by choosing options with your preferred flavour profile or aesthetic. Some salad leaves you might want to add to your garden are: 

• Amaranth is an unusual, brightly-coloured salad with broad leaves and perennial flowers. As an ‘edimental’, they look as good as they taste
• Chicory leaves are full of colour, texture and bittersweet flavour. Delicious in salad, they can also be roasted and caramelised 
• Mâche or lamb’s lettuce has very small, gentle leaves that have a sweet, nutty flavour and can be grown in any cooler months
• Mustard Greens are, as the name suggests, packed full of fiery taste. The slightly spiky leaves make a great autumn or winter crop
• Nasturtiums can add a beautiful touch to your garden and dishes. These bright flowers come in a range of colours and are edible, as are the leaves and seeds
• Plantain is a tasty alternative to spinach that can be cooked in the same way. Sow between March and May for a year-round crop
• Rocket (arugula) has thin, green leaves packed with plenty of bite and a peppery taste. They can be grown from April through to September
• Spinach isn’t all green and round-leafed. Variety like Red Orach and Perennial are great for adding texture to your garden or meals

How to Prepare Soil for Salad Leaves

Whether your salad leaf variety prefers full sun or shade, prepare the soil you’ll plant in by weeding and destoning. Mixing in compost makes the soil more nutrient-dense and improves drainage, helping to boost the success of your salad crop. Rake through the ground, make it level and gently firm it ready for planting. 

If you’re growing your salad in a container or raised bed, make sure it’s at least 15cm deep and has drainage holes. Soil in pots at least 30cm wide won’t dry out as quickly as in smaller ones. However, if you are using compost, make sure you water before sowing seeds and regularly after planting.

Sowing Your Salad Leaf Seeds

Although some salad leaves are best suited to cooler climates, you should wait until March before you sow seeds outdoors. If you want to give your plants a head start or grow them over winter, you can sow seeds indoors as early as February. Greenhouses, polytunnels or window sills are great areas to germinate salad seeds. 

To sow directly outside, drill holes 1cm deep between 5cm and 20cm apart, depending on the variety. Drop two or three seeds into each hole and cover lightly with seed compost or soil and water.

Planting Your Salad Leaves

Seedlings should appear within a few days, particularly if the weather is warmer. Once the plants are big enough to handle (around 10cm), you may have to thin out your seedlings so there’s no overcrowding. Check the seed packet for the final spacing advice. 

If you’ve grown your seedlings indoors and are transplanting them outside, make sure you gradually move them into cooler conditions (hardening off) before planting. Also, do this if you plan to move your containers of salad leaves outside. This will minimise the chances of the plants going into shock when you put them in the ground. You may want to use cloches or insulting materials to warm the soil if you’re planting in cooler shoulder seasons.

How to Care for Your Salad Leaf Plants

To give your salad plants the best chance of success, make sure you gently water seedlings regularly until they’re established. Avoiding dry soil at all times is key and watering in the morning rather than the evening will help prevent diseases. 

Once the seedlings are in their final position, mulching around your plants with peat-free compost or wood chippings will help keep in moisture. This, alongside regular weeding, will also help keep weeds at bay, so your plants won’t need to compete for moisture and nutrients. 

In particularly hot weather, it’s important to increase watering. If the sun is particularly strong, you may need to give your plants some shade to stop your plants from bolting (flowering). This will make your leaves inedible, so move containers, sow seeds and transplant seedlings into shaded areas in high summer.

Harvesting Salad Leaves

As soon as your plant is producing leaves (usually when the plant is about 8cm to 10cm tall), you can start to harvest them. Depending on the variety and weather conditions, this will be around four weeks after sowing your seeds. Harvesting regularly after this point is important to keep the plant flourishing and prevent diseases or pests. Do so in the morning so the leaves are packed with the most flavour and nutrients.

One of the best ways to harvest salad leaves is to use the “cut-and-come-again” method. To do this, get a sharp pair of scissors or pincers and cut a few of the outer leaves off close to the base. Never take more than a third of the plant and return every two weeks to give your plant enough time to regrow. Alternatively, you can trim the tips of the plant leaves little and often. 

You can also harvest the whole salad plant by cutting close to its base. However, this is unlikely to regrow and will reduce the length of your cropping season. 

To check if a lettuce is still good to eat, cut the leaf and see if a milky liquid comes out. If it doesn’t, it’s good to eat. If it does and tastes bitter, then the plant is overripe and should be composted. Or, if there’s no bitterness, harvest and use the whole plant immediately.

Troubleshooting Problems

If you water your plants regularly and keep them out of hot, dry conditions, your salad leaves are likely to grow well. Correct spacing, regular harvesting and removing any poor leaves will also stop damp from building up and causing diseases like grey mould. 

However, pests are the main threat to salad leaf crops. Slugs, snails, birds and aphids are some of the most common you’ll spot. Net covers and cloches offer good protection against these, particularly for younger plants. Using fleece or mesh will also offer a good guard, particularly against flea beetles.

By choosing the best variety for your garden and kitchen needs, sowing and planting in good quality soil and watering regularly, you could soon be harvesting salad leaves all year long. To find alternative varieties that look and taste great, take a look at our heirloom salad leaves range. Happy Growing!

Video – How to Sow and Grow Salad Leaves