Winter is often seen as a time for gardens and gardeners alike to hang up their wellies, take a step back and slowly come to a halt. Especially for vegetable growers. Most of our favourite vegetables love the warmer weather and the perennials that do continue through the colder months, don’t need nearly as much looking after. This can leave us as gardeners feeling a little lost, impatient for spring and sometimes, sad.
This year, I’ve been experimenting with a couple of pots, seeing what I can get to grow purely over the colder months. Without a poly-tunnel (yet), I am a little restricted with what seeds I can sow, but I have to say watching these new seedlings sprout up over the winter has really made me smile!
The seedlings above is from a salad leaf called Mizuna. It’s something I have never grown before, but apparently does incredibly well over the winter thanks to it’s hardiness. This leaf is served best cooked and I look forward to adding it to some stir fries and maybe the odd stew, depending of course on how much I like the flavour.
I’m taking a guess that it might be a little peppery. But that might be because the shape of the more mature leaves reminds me of rocket! The point is, it’s grown so happily on my patio and it’s been a joy to see the pot go from brown to green!
These are some Vailan winter gem lettuce seedlings, sown at the same time as the mizuna. Once again, they’ve grown so well so far and I can’t wait to see them get bigger!
Some other salad crops worth sticking out now are:
- Lambs lettuce
- Watercress
- Purslane
- Salad Burnet
Here’s a little advice on how to go about sowing them in pots outside:
Fill the bottom of the pot with some rocks or smashed, old pots (crocks) which will help with drainage.
Fill the pot with some fresh peat free compost
Scatter salad seeds thinly! The seeds are very small and so you don’t require much for a good amount of seedlings!
Once they are about the size shown in the pictures above, thin out the seedlings leaving about 2.5 inches between each one.
Once they bush out, pick and eat. Then repeat. The more you pick, the more that will grow! So keep on picking.
