Leafy veg and salad leaves prefer cool, shady spots and grow well in pots or in a trough, so they're ideal for shady balconies and small gardens.

Advertisement

You can sow the seeds directly into your pot, and vary the leaves to suit your own tastes. Discover more vegetable crops to grow in shade.

Keep picking and watering the plants, and you should be able to pick them again several times. From late summer, sow winter salads such as oriental greens and grow beetroot for leaves.

Discover how to plant a quick-growing salad container, below.

You Will Need

  • Texsel greens (6)
  • Komatsuna (6)
  • Mustard 'Green in Snow' (6)
  • Kale 'Red Russian' (3)
  • Radicchio 'Palla Rossa' (3)
  • Beetroot 'Bulls Blood' (6)
  • Trough, or large pot

Step 1

Watering the compost
Watering the compost

Fill the pot with multi-purpose compost and water well – you need to be sowing onto damp soil.

More like this

Step 2

Sowing the seed
Sowing the seed

Scatter a few inches of each type of seed generously right across the compost to create a mix of colour, taste and texture.


Step 3

Covering the seed with a thin layer of compost
Covering the seed with a thin layer of compost

Cover lightly with compost. Water daily, using a fine rose on the watering can, and seedlings should appear in about 10 days.

Advertisement

komatsuna-seedlings-2

Winter salads to sow in summer


Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement