How to Grow Salad Leaves: Sow a Little, Every Fortnight

Salad leaves are the highest value crop in the garden per square metre, and they are the one I most often see grown the wrong way. Whole hearted lettuces take ten weeks, occupy a lot of ground and all mature at once. Sown thickly and cut young they start producing in four weeks, regrow twice, and cost a fraction of a bag from a shop.

The short answer

Sow thickly and cut young rather than growing whole hearts. A short row or one small container every two weeks from early spring to early autumn is the whole method, and it is what turns salad into a weekly supply rather than a glut. Choose bolt resistant varieties for summer and give them afternoon shade. Each sowing gives two or three cuts over six weeks, then clear it and resow.

Cut and come again, not hearts#

The difference is worth being specific about, because it changes everything else.

Cut and come again

Sown thickly, cut with scissors about 3 cm above the crown at four to five weeks, regrows for two or three cuts. Fast, dense, and suits containers.

Hearted lettuce

Sown thinly, thinned to 25 to 30 cm, grown for ten weeks to a whole head, harvested once. More ground, longer wait, one harvest.

The practical difference

The same square metre gives you salad for most of the summer under cut and come again, or about a dozen lettuces on one weekend under the other.

Hearts have their place if you want a crisp whole lettuce. For a household that wants a bowl of leaves several times a week, cutting young wins on every measure.

Sow a little, every fortnight#

If you take one thing, take this. It is not about technique, it is about the calendar.

One long row sown in April gives you more salad than you can eat in May and nothing in July. A short row every two weeks gives you salad every week from May to October.

Write the repeat dates into the plan in winter, as separate lines, because deciding in June to sow more is exactly when you will forget.

Key points

• Sow every two weeks from early spring to early September. Ten or twelve small sowings a year, not two big ones.
• A sowing can be a 30 cm row or one seed tray or a single container. Small is the point.
• Sow 1 cm deep, thickly, in a band rather than a thin line, because you are harvesting leaves not spacing plants.
• Keep the surface damp until germination, which takes only five to ten days.
• Clear and resow after the third cut rather than nursing tired plants.

What to grow, and when each one suits#

Different leaves suit different parts of the season, and mixing them is what gives a decent bowl.

Loose leaf lettuce

The bulk of the bowl. Many colours and textures. Bolts in heat, so choose bolt resistant types for summer.

Rocket

Fast, peppery, and it bolts quickly in heat, which makes it a spring and autumn crop. Flea beetle puts holes in it; mesh prevents that.

Mizuna and mustards

The most reliable leaves I grow. Fast, tolerant of cold and heat, and they regrow strongly. Best value on this list.

Spinach

Excellent in spring and autumn, bolts readily in summer heat. Chard is the summer substitute.

Chard

Semi permanent. One sowing crops for eight months and stands through light frost. Not cut and come again exactly, but the same idea over a longer arc.

Pak choi and oriental leaves

Fast, productive, and best sown from midsummer onwards for autumn. Spring sowings bolt.

Lamb's lettuce and winter purslane

Genuinely hardy. Sown in early autumn they crop through winter under a cloche when nothing else does.

Bolting, and why summer lettuce wants shade#

Bolting is the plant switching from leaf to seed. It is triggered by heat and long days, and once it starts the leaves turn bitter and there is no way back.

You cannot cure it, so the whole game is prevention.

Sow the bulk of your lettuce in spring and again from late summer. For the height of summer, use bolt resistant varieties and put them somewhere with afternoon shade. Keep the moisture consistent, because water stress brings bolting forward.

This is why salad is the most useful crop for a shaded garden. A bed that gets three or four hours of morning sun will grow better July lettuce than a bed in full sun.

Watering and feeding#

Salad is shallow rooted and mostly water, so consistency matters more than volume.

Water little and often in warm weather, at the base if you can, and mulch beds to even out the moisture. Containers may need water twice a day in high summer.

Feeding is rarely needed for a four to six week crop in decent compost. If you are taking a third cut from a container, a dilute general feed after the second cut helps the regrowth.

Containers, which suit this crop particularly well#

Salad is the best argument for container growing there is.

A shallow wide container works, because the roots are shallow. Fifteen centimetres of depth is enough, and width matters more than depth. Multipurpose compost is fine, since the crop is over in weeks.

The advantages are real: no slugs if it is raised, easy to move into shade in July, easy to cut at waist height, and you can keep three containers at different ages to guarantee a supply.

What can go wrong#

Slugs, above everything else. Salad seedlings are the most attractive thing in the garden to a slug. Containers raised off the ground solve most of it.

Flea beetle, small round holes in rocket and mustards. Cosmetic mostly, and fine mesh over the crop prevents it.

Bitter leaves, which is bolting or a plant pushed to a fourth cut. Clear and resow.

Damping off in seed trays, where seedlings collapse at soil level. Sow less thickly, water less, improve air movement, and use fresh compost.

What it costs#

A packet of mixed salad seed

$2 to $5, and it contains enough for a whole season of fortnightly sowings.

Separate packets of four types

$8 to $18, and worth it because you can match the leaf to the month.

Three shallow containers

$20 to $50, reused every year, and they remove the slug problem.

Compost for a season of sowings

$8 to $15, and a bag goes a long way at this scale.

Compared with buying it

A supermarket bag of leaves costs more than a packet of seed and lasts three days. This is the clearest saving in the garden.

Where this needs adjusting#

In a hot climate, shift the sowing calendar to autumn, winter and early spring, and skip midsummer entirely for lettuce. Mustards and chard cope better with heat.

In a cold garden, a cloche or cold frame extends both ends of the season substantially, and lamb's lettuce sown in September will crop through winter.

Indoors, salad on a bright windowsill works in winter and will be slower and paler. Choose mustards and rocket, which tolerate lower light than lettuce.

Where the guidance here comes from#

The fortnightly sowing habit and the cut and come again approach are conventional, and they are the two things that turned salad from an occasional crop into a weekly one in my own garden. For variety choice, bolt resistance and sowing depth the RHS advice on growing your own is the reference I check, and Garden Organic is good on slug management without pellets, which matters most for exactly this crop.

The short version#

Sow thickly and cut young, 3 cm above the crown, for two or three harvests per sowing. Sow a small amount every two weeks from early spring to early September. Choose bolt resistant varieties for summer and give them afternoon shade. Grow in raised containers if slugs are a problem. Clear and resow after the third cut.

Related reading#

• Garden planner: writing the fortnightly repeats in as separate lines, which is what makes them happen.
• Container gardening: shallow wide containers, which suit this crop better than depth.
• Shade garden plants: why salad is the crop for a shaded garden.
• How to start a vegetable garden: the highest value crop to begin with.