Little salad leaves

[Hazel at the Hill]

Carol Klein showed a whole array of cut and come again type salad leaves in the Grow Your Own Veg programme last Friday which she was harvesting really really young.

What different seeds can I use in the same way? Lettuce (obviously!) but I think that she also used beetroot (or was it beet leef?) - I presume that I can use spinach, but what about turnips?

It's those pot-grown peas that have started me off down this track - that and the snow outside and my impatience to eat something that I've grown myself!

Any advice would be most welcome....

[Alice]

Hello Hazel, Yes you can use lettuce, spinach, beetroot, turnip and don't forget rocket. You can buy seed packets of mixed leaves which include the above and several different lettuce types. If it's just wee baby leaves you want it works well. And the pea shoots off course, they're eating size in a couple of weeks.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Many thanks for that, Alice - I've got seed packets of all but the rocket - so I've just padded through the snow to the garage to fill a small trough with some potting compost and I'll go and sow!

Trust that this will be ok on our (north facing) kitchen windowsill?

[Alice]

You can keep them anywhere you like until they germinate, Hazel. I would let the compost warm up a bit before you sow. it will be very cold in the garage. Once the seeds have germinated you need to get them into the light then. North facing is the darkest window. If you have a west facing window that would be good. it doesn't matter if it's a cool bedroom as they don't need too much heat. Just see how they go and play it by ear.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Right - trough with compost now warming on the radiator in the lounge - I will sow those seeds before bedtime!

I'll wait till they pop their little heads up, then into the attic room under the Velux window.

Impatient, moi?

[Alice]

Good luck with that Hazel. It should work. And I should have added radish. You can eat the leaves from them too, and they come up very quickly.

[Hazel at the Hill]

I didn't know that you could eat radish leaves - I'll add a few seeds!

Thanks, Alice!

[Hazel at the Hill]

'tis done! All I've got to do is keep the cats off......

[bramble]

Hi Hazel, if its just a small pot your'e planting, put the net that oranges come in over the pot and that will keep the cat off them.
Good luck with the planting.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Good idea, Bramble - I think that the trough will be ok once the seeds have come up, BUT at the moment I suspect that to my cats it looks exactly like an auxilary cat litter tray!

[Alice]

Thanks for the pic Hazel. Hope we get to see one of the lovely wee leaves.

[Hazel at the Hill]

I can't thank you enough for your encouragement with this, Alice - and as promised here is a pic of the very same precisely 5 weeks later!