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Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Organic salad vegetables eg lettuce, radish, spring onion, fit in very well with either other organic vegetables or in an ornamental organic garden.  They adapt well to growing with other plants or in containers of all kinds.  They will tolerate partial or light shade but do need lots of water.

All the organic salad vegetables enjoy similar soil conditions - plenty of organic content, not acidic and moist throughout the growing period.  You can plant between flowers or other organic vegetables such as peas or beans.  However, organic lettuce does not like to be overcrowded so be prepared to thin out as necessary.

Sow all organic salad vegetable seeds very thinly and cover with about ½" of fine soil.  Only sow a few organic lettuce and radish seeds every two weeks to give successional cutting.  Organic salad spring onions can be planted closer together.

Thin your organic salad vegetables as soon as the first true leaves appear.  Water well beforehand to keep the soil firm.  Organic lettuce should be thinned until they are about 12" apart (smaller varieties such as Little Gem, 9" apart).  Organic salad spring onions can be 4" apart and radishes are usually thinned by picking for eating.  Organic radishes will quite happily grow cheek-by-jowl with each other until large enough for eating.

Sowings should be repeated every three weeks so that you have a supply of spring onions for your salads.

Radishes are incredibly easy to grow – get them past the seedling stage and you’re pretty much home free. Their major requirements are a steady supply of water and, if you’re growing them on a light, sandy soil (which doesn’t retain nutrients very well) a monthly feed of dilute seaweed solution. If you sowed them as a catch crop they will also benefit from a topdressing of fish, blood and bone once the main crop is harvested, to help them mature quickly in the open.

Decent weed control is hugely important during the early stages of development – remove them by hand as soon as they appear. Once the radish seedlings have established themselves, keep any cultivation to a minimum to avoid disturbing the plants, as this can cause them to bolt. Instead, stifle unwanted plants by applying a light organic mulch such as chopped straw. This also means that if you are growing radishes as a catch crop, the surrounding plants are best cut back rather than dug out.

The plants develop so quickly that pests and diseases rarely get a look-in, making this a great crop for small children to grow. Birds are the most likely threat your crop will face, particularly at the seedling stage, in any case, hungry tweeters are easily foiled by covering young plants with mesh or wire netting. Cabbage root fly larvae can attack the roots, causing stunted growth and wilted leaves. If you’ve had problems with these brassica-loving pests in the past, put rings of cardboard around your radishes – the flies will lay their eggs on that (instead of on the soil near your plants) and they’ll dry out before hatching.

Organic lettuce is ready for picking when a firm heart has formed.  Check by pressing the top gently with the back of your hand.  Do not squeeze the heart as this causes damage.  If the heart begins rising to a point, it is preparing to 'bolt' i.e. quickly producing thick flowering stems from the centre.  If left, your organic lettuce will be uneatable, so cut and use quickly, or add to your organic compost heap.

The real secrets of good, easy organic salad vegetables are water and space.  It is best to water in the morning before the sun get on them and so your organic salad vegetables will have dried off by the evening.  Avoid overcrowding with regular thinning and enjoy the freshest organic salad vegetables ever.

"The Salad of Success"

Salads are the ultimate freestyle meal, made from many organic combinations. Great to combine a few colours, where the Artist from within truly comes alive, add a nice tasty dressing, have as a meal or as a crunchy accompaniment to almost any meal.

The Salad Plate or Mixed Bowl

Greens...rinse well or spin-dry

Spinach + Lettuce...many varieties to explore...

Iceberg has now many more lettuce family members, Cos is very popular, as it keeps well and a great choice for lining your bowl or my much preferred salad preparation is the salad plate, as you can really get a beautiful finished colour of the rainbow and flavour not all tossed about.

Butter Lettuce, soft and buttery texture and soft green to yellow colour, to the frilly leaves of Oakleaf on to Radicchio with a slight bitter taste, makes a good combination, or nice gentle torn pieces of the Fritz and combine with other greens as has a tendency to dominate the flavour.

Silverbeet, cabbage, watercress, endive, witlof, chicory, Chinese greens...Kale, broccoli, shanghai paak tsoi, choy sum.

Cress, Mizuna (Japanese mustard)

Choose some more organic treaures from the plant kingdom...artichoke, asparagus, beetroot and zucchini (nice grated fresh), broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, radish and shallots fresh from your summer organic garden, mushrooms, snowpeas, peas, sweet corn, green beans, red odourless salad onion (a mild variety), leek, cucumber and explore some wild foods eg, the peeled fruit from the prickly pear.

Add some organic fruit...tomato, paw paw, avocado, raisins, sultanas, pineapple

Then some organic finishing touches of tofu, hard boiled egg, chick peas, nuts, cheese, nori, beans (lima beans), seeds (pepita, sunflower, sesame), sprinkle of evening primrose oil seeds, carraway seeds. Fresh Herbs + Edible Flowers petals, sprouts,kelp, strips of organic chicken, seafood - your choice to be creative.

Just before serving dress with dressing.

The Salad of Succss

How to make it:

2 choice cuts of energy

and eggs of cold hard cash,

and freely oil diplomacy, with salt of tact a dash,

Bedeck with leaves of cheerfulness, and pepper well with nerve,

Behold your Salad of Sucess - Stir and serve (The Sun 1911)