Growing pea shoots

I remember a few years ago talking to a fellow allotmenteer about growing pea shoots. He couldn't get his head round the concept of sowing pea seeds and eating the shoots but not the peas. Much as I tried to explain that they make a very tasty salad he thought it was a waste of pea seeds. Pea seeds are grown for peas not leaves was his thinking.  But then he wasn't a salad person. He was a big guy who could lift a paving slab onto his shoulder and carry it without any effort from one end of his plot to the other and the top of his plot was up a steep mound. He was a steak or beefburger man and salad was just a thing that went on the side of the plate for decoration.

However, I love pea shoots in a salad, the intensity of flavour from those little shoots is amazing. Grown in the winter time, to munch on a pea shoot takes you back to the summer when you pick the first young peas and eat them straight from the pod.  They can be grown throughout the year are so easy to grow.

I started some off at the end of February on my kitchen windowsill using supermarket bought dried marrowfat peas. You can also use the seeds that get left over in the packets from your garden sowings. I grew them in recycled plastic food containers and added some multipurpose compost. Then I sowed the seeds quite thickly and covered with more compost. I was amazed at how quickly they grew.

Within a few days they had germinated and now into the second week they are ready for cutting. I cut just above a leaf about halfway down the stem. They will continue to grow and then I will get another cutting from them.

I think I probably sowed too many and just one container would have been enough. They grow so quickly that you can sow another lot a couple of weeks after the first to get a succession of them.

Salad harvest

 

One of the things I thought I would learn from last year's allotment growing was not to plant too many lettuces. But once again we have overdone it. We always plant more than we will need because we expect to lose some to slugs and  that didn't happen. But we are enjoying our lettuce harvests.

We have a few different varieties of lettuce growing. The first one we started off was 'salad bowl', which can be picked as leaves, but because we have so many we have been pulling them as whole lettuces. Back at home I keep them in a bowl of water which keeps them going for a few days and I can just take leaves off as I need them. This lettuce has kept going for weeks in the ground and is still going strong, getting bigger and bigger, although it is now showing signs of going to seed. We are also growing 'red salad bowl' which is the same type of leaf but red. It looks quite attractive on the plate with the two mixed. Also in the salad bed is  'little gem' lettuce and a variety called 'freckles' which has a spotted leaf and in the last week I have sown some' Webb's Wonderful'.

To make sure we have a continuous supply of salad stuff throughout the summer I sow about every two weeks. As well as lettuce we grow radish, spring onions and beetroot.  The radish are very quick to grow and need picking regularly as they soon go to seed and then they become very tough, so it's best not to sow too many at a time.

Salad vegetables are such a quick growing crop they can be grown in between other veg which might take longer to grow.  If we run out of space in the beds we use containers. Salad veg is really easy to grow in containers and is good for anyone who has a very small space or doesn’t have a garden. This week I sowed some rocket and watercress in big tubs.

We like having different varieties to choose from and even if we grow too many and they end up on the compost heap, they are not wasted because they go back into the soil eventually.

 

Not completely useless

Here I am recovering from a broken wrist. I'll try not  to dwell on it too much, but sometimes I feel useless. I'm trying to get back to normal, I'm told to do things to exercise my wrist but then I suffer with pain and I'm told I'm doing too much. What I really want to do is dig the allotment, but I know that's a long way off. The very thought of digging makes me want to squeal in pain.

So, longing to get out in the garden and do things, I've been thinking about what I can do in the garden, gentle things which don't overtax my wrist. I 've been able to do a little bit of tidying up in the borders, clearing away dead foliage and a bit of hand weeding. I enjoyed that. I  chitted the potatoes. That was an easy job. At the allotment my daughter Helen and I planted onion and garlic sets in modules. That was a nice gentle job, it didn't hurt.

At home I have been sowing salad seeds for micro greens and baby leaves. I can manage that. I sowed pea seeds for pea shoots, rocket, radish, mustard, mixed leaves, kale, cabbage, beetroot. All these can be sown at this time of year for baby salad leaves. They grow quickly if sown indoors and are kept on a windowsill. They are great to cut and add to salads and sandwiches. I even got the grandchildren involved one day when they got home from school. I filled a big tray of compost and brought it indoors. I then found some recycled plastic food containers to use as seed trays. I let them choose what they wanted to grow. The fact that they were going to grow salad leaves was of no interest to them, as they said they didn't like salad. I suggested that mummy would like to have some, but the thing which really grabbed it for them was that it was a messy job. They dug their hands into the compost, got dirty and made a mess.

So in the end they enjoyed their after school activity and they had a tray of newly sown seeds to take home. Their mum was pleased. I just had a lot of mess to clear up afterwards. It was a bit painful, but I managed. (ouch!). Hopefully they will get more interested when they start to see the seeds germinate.

 

Seeds

We're always ready to grab any free seeds, so when my daughter and I heard that there was going to be a stall on the market with a seed giveaway, we went along to see what was on offer. The event was organised by a local environmental charity group called Prospects who have a food growing project working with allotments, schools and other community groups.

I wasn't really expecting too much, maybe just a couple of packets of free seeds and lots of promotion for the group. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find the market stall had boxes of seeds set out containing many different varieties of  all sorts of vegetables, herbs and salad crops. Not only that, we were allowed TEN packets each!

Needless to say we had a good old rummage through the seed packets. Although we had already bought our seeds for the new growing season, this was an opportunity to try some different varieties.

Our haul included:
turnip, cabbage, pumpkin, yellow courgette, purple podded pea, beefsteak tomato, pepper, runner bean, broad bean.

There were plenty of varieties of salad leaf which caught my eye and since I have been taking part in the
52 week salad challenge I'm always ready to try something different.
We picked out:
Swiss Chard--bright lights, Mustard Pizzo, Orach Scarlet Emperor, American land cress, Mizuna, Perpetual Spinach, Rocket --discovery, Pak Choi crunchy mix, and a frilly leaf salad mix.

That should keep us very busy this year and now we have two allotments to grow on we should have plenty of space. Can't wait to get sowing!

Dreaming of salad

This 52 week salad challenge must be getting to me because the other night I was dreaming of lettuce. Not just any lettuce but red salad bowl lettuce.But I had been eating it earlier in the day and was feeling pleased that it was still doing well in the garden after all summer and I am still picking the leaves.

Looking back in my garden journal I found that I sowed the seeds on 21st April. Over the summer I have just picked the leaves, but recently because I thought they may not last much longer once the frosts start, I started to cut the tops which are a much brighter red colour and have started to thicken and become more lettuce shaped. These have been lovely in salads.

I am also now picking the winter salad leaves planted in the cold frame which are a curly leaf mix.  The watercress and mustard are also still doing well.

Indoors I have sown seeds for baby leaves. There is a winter salad mix, some 'gourmet micro greens', rocket, beetroot and lemon basil. These are all at the just germinating stage, but I am also growing peashoots and have been cutting these for a few weeks.

The weather has turned very cold here now and sometimes the idea of going outside to the top of the garden to pick some salad is not very appealing, so it will be good to have some indoor stuff to use.

Winter salad growing

As the weather has turned colder and growing slowed down, I have moved my salad growing into the cold frame. I sowed some Sarah Raven winter salad mix a week or two ago and am pleased to see they have germinated.  I also planted some  seedlings of a frilly leaf mix bought from the garden centre.

 In the garden beds the red salad bowl lettuce is still growing well and the mustard is enormous. I tend to pick the smaller leaves as they look more attractive in a salad, but I think the larger ones are more peppery.  These have kept growing all summer, I keep wondering how much longer they will all last. I'm sure the cold will get to them soon and they will just flop. There is still plenty of watercress and just one small lettuce which I think is a butterhead variety.  Indoors I have started growing pea shoots again.  I think it's time to check out the garden centre to what salad leaves I can grow through the winter.

Salad chat update

My salad growing has not been good in the last few weeks.  The seeds I've sown have not germinated or I suspect have been eaten by slugs early on. We've had so much rain, that when I have been able to get out into the garden there have been so many other things to see to that the salad has got neglected.

There are  still salad leaves for picking--red salad bowl, watercress, mustard and rocket. The rocket and mustard have flowered and look very pretty! I can't remember when I last bought any lettuce.                

 I haven't done well with the sowing of new salad leaves. In fact things were so bad that when I went to the garden centre the other week I bought a tray of salad leaves to plant in the hope that they would be strong enough to resist the slugs.  Well I planted them and they are still there so there's hope yet. They might do bettter than my own sowings.

In the cold frame the cucumbers produced some tiny fruit, but some were chewed at by the slugs. And after the heavy rain this week the plants looked so bad that I decided to give up and throw them out.

The good news is that we have a growhouse now at the allotment and I'm wondering if we might be able to grow some salad in there during the colder months. Also at the allotment the fennel we planted last month is looking good. Some of the beetroot we planted earlier in the year didn't get thinned out so we harvested them as baby beets and they were lovely in a salad.  There is plenty more beetroot both at the allotment and in the garden cold frame.

 In the next few weeks I shall be sowing some winter salad leaves and start sowing seed for microgreens and pea shoots again for the cooler months.

For more information on growing salad crops and recipes to try check out the 52 Week Salad Challenge posts on  veg plotting's blog

Watercress and other things

I popped down the garden the other day to pick some salad leaves and was amazed to see how well the watercress has grown. I tend to forget it's there because it's a bit hidden by a big clump of oregano which keeps flopping over onto the bed. Perhaps it's grown well because I've left it to get on and do it's own thing or maybe the wet weather has helped it along. Whatever the reason for it's rapid growth I'm pleased. Watercress is not only very healthy, it's also a very versatile salad crop. I love cheese and watercress sandwiches, watercress soup and you can also make a sauce which goes well with fish.

Other salad stuff which is doing well in the garden at the moment are mustard, rocket and red salad bowl. The red salad bowl has just kept on growing all summer and I've kept on picking it. I transplanted some lollo rosso seedlings a couple of weeks ago in different places around the veg garden and was horrified to see two of the rows had completely disappeared the next day. That must be the work of slugs. Fortunately the others are still growing.

The cucumbers in the cold frame are doing well and there are some tiny cucumbers there. The 'tumbler' tomatoes don't look very happy, they seem very slow.  They have flowers but no tomatoes. The beetroot at the allotment was very overcrowded, I should have thinned them out early on, but I pulled some tiny ones the other day. They were much smaller than baby beets, more like micro beets, but they went well with a salad. I've sown some more beetroot recently which is probably my last chance for an autumn crop. I've also got some fennel seedlings which are ready to plant out at the allotment.  I've never grown fennel before and I'm not sure how to use it in cooking, but I believe it can be sliced and added to salads.

Soon I'll be sowing my Sarah Raven winter salad mix, so hopefully there'll still be plenty of interesting salad ingredients for our autumn and winter salads.

For more information on growing salad crops and recipes to try check out the 52 Week Salad Challenge posts on  veg plotting's blog

Summer salad growing

I don't think I've had so much salad growing in my garden as I have this summer. I think that's partly due to the  52 Week Salad Challenge which has given me some interest and motivation. I've also had more space to grow salad crops this year because now the allotment is more established I've gradually stopped growing veg in the raised beds at the top of the garden.  I like to grow salad at home rather than the allotment, it's so easy to just pop outside to pick a few leaves or herbs for our meals.

At the moment I have red mizuna, red salad bowl leaves, little gem lettuce and watercress which I am picking regularly. There are seedlings of mustard, rocket and lollo rosso just getting going. So far there is no slug damage, I keep a close eye on them, they can disappear overnight when the slugs are about.
 

In the cold frame I planted out some cucumber (marketmore) .  Last year's attempt at growing these at the allotment produced two tiny cucumbers. I don't like to be defeated so I'm having another go. My attempts at growing tomatoes are also a bit hit and miss as they usually get affected by blight. But I keep on trying so I've planted three tumbler tomato plants in tubs.

Around the garden the herbs are growing in pots. There are several types of mint, sage, sorrel, thymes, marjoram, oregano and parsley. I've also sown borage seeds. I've been  surprised at how quickly they have grown into big plants and the flowers are so lovely.

Down at the allotment there is radish, spring onion (red and white varieties) and beetroot.  I've also sown fennel seeds at home which will be planted out at the allotment when they are ready.

I was pleased to receive two packets of Sarah Raven salad mixes from the Veg Plotting giveaway. There's a summer mix and a winter mix, I'll be sowing these soon.

Well there's plenty to keep us going for the summer, but my next challenge will be to continue to sow and grow for autumn and winter.

Loads of lettuce

I've had a few ups and downs with my salad growing this month. The wet weather has brought out all the slugs. Well you'll know that of course, everyone is complaining about the slugs. So I am beginning to see holes appearing in my salad leaves.

We went away for the weekend and I came back to find all the mizuna tops nibbled at. The lollo rossa seedlings have disappeared and so has the watercress.

However I am still pleased with the progress of the rocket, red salad bowl, tom thumb and little gem lettuce which were further on than the other stuff so could cope with a bit of slug damage. At the time of planting I thought I may have put too many in for our needs, but at least now I have enough leaves to be able to pick around the slug damaged ones. When I look back on last month's photos of my salad bed I can see how well everything has grown.  I'm still growing pea shoots, those are in a tub by the back door.

I'm so enjoying going out into the garden with a bowl to collect a few salad leaves to go with our lunch or dinner. And I haven't bought any lettuce for weeks now.

I don't seem to be very good at growing radish. I notice every year, that I get some pathetic looking radish, so I think it must be me who can't grow them. I've sown some at the allotment to see if they do any better there.

The herbs I planted in pots are romping away too, I've used the red veined sorrell in salads.

The second lot of outdoor cucumbers seem to be doing fine (the first lot died). I shall pot them into bigger pots before finally planting out into the cold frame

So now I just need to sow more seeds to replace all those slug eaten seedlings.

Salad growing

As I  review my salad growing  for this month for the salad challenge, I'm feeling that I'm making progress. I have a raised bed which I am using for growing salad and there are some neat rows of crops coming along nicely. I'm also using the cold frame to grow salad.

There are some  radish  now  ready to pick from the first sowings I made. The tom thumb and little gem lettuce which I transplanted into the raised bed have taken well.  I had so many of the little gem lettuce that I also planted some in between the broad beans and peas. In the cold frame I have some tantan lettuce which is a little gem type. I have planted out the watercress which has been a bit slow to grow, but hopefully the warmer weather will bring it along now.

I have been sowing more crops this week. I sowed  watercress,                              mizuna, and lollo rossa.  I also planted some beetroot seedlings.  We had planted most of them at the allotment and these were left over. Couldn't bear to throw them away.

I bought some herb plants a few weeks ago. There are ginger mint, basil mint and lemon mint, sorrel, hyssop and three sorts of sage. I potted them up into terracotta pots and left them next to the raised bed whilst I decided where to put them. I the end I left them there because I thought they looked quite good. I have other herbs around the garden, different types of mint, thyme, oregano, marjoram and chives. Today I sowed seeds of borage and dill. I have parsley and basil seedlings too.

I've been trying to grow outdoor cucumbers, the seeds germinated but the seedlings eventually died off. I've sown more seeds and if these don't work then I might buy a couple of plants from the garden centre to grow in the cold frame.

There's lots of salad growing, I just can't wait to eat it!

  

     

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