New salad crops

May 13, 2010

by Kathleen Lang, Lanark County Master Gardeners Today, green salads have become very popular, and growers have traveled the world and chosen a variety of favourite greens from different countries, to provide us with a colourful and tasty fare.

Popular Asian crops include Mibuna, Mizuna and Tatsoi. Mibuna is a nice, mildly sharp tasting green for mixed salads or light cooking (stir fries). Mizuna is a unique mild mustard green of Japanese origin, producing rosettes of pencil thin, white stalks and deeply cut, fringed leaves with a mild flavour. An essential salad mix ingredient. Tatsoi, is another standard salad mix ingredient — its leaves form a compact, thick rosette. Mild in taste in salads and stir fries. Easy from seed, harvest outer leaves only to allow plants to keep growing and producing all season long.

Another popular green are the cresses. Curly cress (aka peppergrass) is typically grown indoors in flats or hydroponically like radish sprouts. Also popular is crinkled cress and watercress.

French sorrel has a bright lemon flavour and is one of the earliest greens in the spring and the last in the fall. The fresh green leaves have an intense lemon flavour and are used sparingly in salad mixes or generously in soups and sauces, especially with fish.

Corn salad is a gourmet salad item ideal for cool weather and winter greenhouse production. Too much heat causes the plants to bolt.

The brassicas are also becoming a popular addition to salad mixes. Together with Arugulas, very young leaves provide mixes with a sort of spicy taste.

There are literally dozens of different kinds of leaf and head lettuces. Leaf lettuces prefer very cool conditions, so early spring and fall planting are preferred. They are a popular cool greenhouse crop. Green varieties include Black-seeded Simpson, Walmans dark green, Envy, green oakleaf, green romaine and Two star. Red varieties include Red Lollo, Dark Red Lollo, Red oakleaf and red romaine. Combinations of these give salad mixes interesting colour and textures.

Romaine lettuces are easy from seed, producing baby leaves in 28 days and full heads in 53-60 days.

Popular head lettuces include Butterhead, Boston, Bib and Iceberg varieties.

If your space is limited and you would like a mix of greens, try one of the mixes sold by seed houses like Johnny’s Seeds. The Allstar mix contains seeds for leaf lettuce varieties such as Outrageous, Tango, Royal Oak, Dark Red Lolo and others. A micro mix is a gourmet vegetable confetti made from a variety of lettuce greens and other crops such as radish sprouts, mustards, burnets, kales and cresses, all harvested at the seedling stage.

Sow a variety of greens for colour, texture and tastes and create your own signature mix.

All of the above are available at the farm gate of Gerrie’s Herbs and Berries (certified organic), Westport, and from local farmers’ markets.

All your gardening questions can be submitted and answered at www.lanarkmastergardeners.mgoi.ca.