Convenient salads

I planted spring onions and salad leaves and radishes at the lotty and they have done brilliantly. We have eaten the row of radishes and pretty much got through the salad leaves and the onions are coming along fine.  It then occurred to me I could use that space more usefully growing bigger longer lasting stuff that I only want to harvest occasionally.  I really could do with salady - couple of leaves on your sandwich- type stuff near to the house.

I had ousted some staging from the greenhouse so it seemed reasonable to put it to some use.

I started growing in seed trays.  They have all come up really well but I do think they are a wee bit too shallow and crowded to continue to do well .

I bought four terrific troughs for just £1.99 each from Home Bargains and I decided I would have a go at transplanting some stuff to give them more room before I went on to sow some seeds to stagger the crops. 

 I moved just 14 radishes (one meal) to one container.  I am not sure if you can successfully transplant salad stuff, so this is a bit of an experiment.

Not sure if I will move any more on or just see how they do in their shallow tray.

I do need to plant up some radish seeds though if I am going to keep them on the go - as I said we can knock this lot off in one meal, easily.









Another trough got some cut and come again salad leaves moved on into it.  I tried hard not to just take the biggest leaves as I suspect that is just one variety of leaf.  I hope I have taken a mix of stuff.  The logic behind this is that if they transplant OK they should give me three crops before giving up the ghost now they have more compost and space to go at.  I may not have to plant any new leaf seeds for a month to join the staggered leaf rota.

My third new container has some land cress moved on into it.  Again I have a seed tray full of it and it needs to be thinned to four inches apart to do well.  It is something of a thug so I expect this to survive the move.

What to do with the other few hundred plants is another question.

I utterly recommend it to any water cress fan.  Water cress  is pricey to buy and doesn't keep more than a day.  Land cress is very nearly the same taste and is right there all year just when you need a handful of it.

Here they all are happily nestled on their staging outside the greenhouse in the utility area.  They ought to do OK as they are snuggled up to the house wall, protected from the wind by the fence opposite and in the sun for half of the day.

The pot at the bottom is mint.  I just moved it on from its cripplingly small pot to give it a breather until I can put it in the long tom on the patio which has the irises in at the moment.  The mint might actually do better here as it likes a little shade and the patio plants do get a baking when the sun comes out.