What if the freshest, most gourmet salad you’ve ever tasted was just a step outside your door? You know – the sort that’ll give fancy restaurants a run for their money!
Growing your own restaurant-quality salads is super quick, easy, and takes up almost no space. All you need is a few containers, some seeds, and potting mix – and you’re in business. No previous experience needed!
Quick and Easy Salad Leaves to Grow
The secret to a non-stop supply of salad leaves is choosing the right types. For sheer speed and abundance, cut-and-come-again salad mixes can’t be beaten. These are often sold as ‘mixed salad leaves’ or ‘mesclun’ and are blends of different salads that are both sown, grown and harvested together. Think mustard and mizuna, lettuce, arugula, perhaps spinach, rainbow chard, and land cress. Sow some seeds today, and you could be picking leaves in as little as three weeks.
For individual stars, you can’t go wrong with loose-leaf lettuce varieties like ‘Oak Leaf’, ‘Lollo Rosso’, or ‘Salad Bowl’. These are bred specifically for picking leaf by leaf, so they keep on giving over a much longer period than something you’ll cut just once for a full head of leaves. Then there’s spinach and chard, which are brilliant in containers and very productive too.
Avoid heading or hearting lettuces like iceberg types. They take a lot longer to reach harvest, and they’ll be ready all at once. Like I said, we’re going for a ‘cut-and-come-again’ approach, which is where the real magic happens!
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Almost anything can be used as a container for growing salads - even an old cardboard box!
Choose Your Container
Now, when I say containers, I mean it loosely, because salads are not in the slightest bit fussy about what they’re grown in. Regular plant pots or tubs work brilliantly, and the bigger the better, as they’ll hold more potting mix and therefore dry out less quickly. But if you want to get creative, or just repurpose what you’ve already got, the options are a veritable smorgasbord and can be super cheap or even free – which is my kind of price!
Think old colanders or strainers, window boxes, seed trays, or large yogurt pots or fruit and salad punnets. If your chosen container doesn’t have any holes in the bottom then just punch a few drainage holes – a sharp-pointed kebab skewer or a firm twist of a screwdriver works a treat for making holes in thin plastic, or you might need a drill for thicker materials.
But one of my absolute favorite recycled containers is the humble cardboard box. If you have two boxes of the same size – fantastic – it means you can create an extra-sturdy setup that will last much longer. Ram one into the other for a super-snug fit, then line it with a single layer of plastic, for instance an old compost sack. And if the look of a cardboard box bothers you, you can always disguise the outside walls with something like a reed screen or perhaps some burlap or hessian.
Stab or cut some drainage holes across the bottom of the plastic liner, fill the box with potting mix, and you’re ready to sow.
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Sowing a mixture of seeds can create a smorgasbord of flavors and colors from your container
How to Sow Salad Leaves in Containers
Fill your container with a good-quality all-purpose potting mix to within about an inch (2cm) of the top. Here’s a little tip that’ll pay dividends if it’s especially hot, for example when sowing in summer: mix some water-retaining gel or crystals into the potting mix, following the pack instructions. These crystals absorb water, swell up, and then – the clever bit – they slowly release that moisture back to your plants. This is just brilliant for hot, dry summers, and will dramatically cut down how often you need to water. It’s real gamechanger!
There are some concerns around using water retaining gels and crystals however, as some of them are synthetic and there’s not a huge amount known about their environmental impact. However, you can find alternative, environmentally safe products on the market too. Alternatively, you could mix biochar into your potting mix. Biochar is a totally natural option with a stonkingly fab water and nutrient-holding capacity – ideal for any thirsty and hungry plants.
Once you’ve filled your container, firm the potting mix down gently, then give it a good water. This will charge up your potting mix with cooling moisture, ready for sowing. Next, scatter the seeds thinly across the surface – thinly being the operative word! It’s all too tempting to tip half the packet in, but overcrowded seedlings are weaker and more prone to disease. The lightest dusting is all you need.
Cover them with a very thin layer of the same potting mix – just the slightest hint – sieved to make it easier for the seedlings to push up through. And then water once again, gently, using a watering can with a fine rose fitted so the seeds aren’t blasted out or washed off into one corner.
Add a label to your container so you don’t forget what you’ve sown, and then the waiting begins – though with salads, thankfully, that wait is gloriously short!
![Salad leaves in a plug tray]()
Keep sowing more salads to ensure a succession of harvests
How to Overcome Hot Summer Weather
Growing salads in summer can be a bit of a challenge. The same warm weather that makes everything else in the garden explode with growth can actually make salad seeds a bit reluctant to germinate. It’s called ‘heat dormancy’, and lettuce especially can stall once temperatures rise above about 77°F (25°C).
The fix is easy – water your containers well, and keep pots shaded during the hottest part of the day, typically from about midday onwards to bring the soil temperature down. Try moving pots against a shady wall, under a table, or just tuck them into the shade of taller plants.
Another trick is to pop newly sown containers into the fridge overnight. Yes, really! Twenty-four hours of cool temperatures can be enough to break heat dormancy and get things going. Continue to keep pots in the relative cool of the house then, once you see the first signs of germination, they can go outdoors.
Once seedlings are up and away, most salads will be quite happy in a spot that gets morning sun but that’s sheltered from the harshest afternoon heat. That’s the sweet spot for summer salad growing.
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Avoid the heat of the day when timing your watering
How to Water Salad Containers
Containers dry out much faster than open ground, and in hot summer weather there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself watering every day. The best time to water is in the morning or, failing that, the evening. Watering in the midday heat means a lot of it simply evaporates before it reaches the roots. That said, if a plant’s clearly struggling, don’t delay – just get on and water it, whatever time of day it is.
I like to gently lift the pot before watering – if it feels light, it needs watering. But if it feels heavy, it’s probably fine. When you water, do it thoroughly. We want the water to soak right down to the bottom of the pot, not just wet the surface. To make very efficient use of every last drop of water in hot weather, try sitting containers in a shallow saucer of water for up to an hour so the roots can take up moisture from below.
Another way to reduce how often you need to water is to add a thin layer of mulch – fine bark mulch or grass clippings, for instance – onto the surface of the container around your plants. This will help to retain moisture by slowing down evaporation, and it will help to keep roots that little bit cooler too.
Salads are hungry plants, and the potting mix they’re grown in will only contain so much nutrition. After the first couple of harvests, give plants a weekly liquid feed with a general, balanced liquid fertilizer, or a seaweed-based feed. You’ll notice the difference in the color and vigor of the leaves almost immediately.
![Harvesting salad leaves]()
Cut-and-come-again salads really help to extend the harvesting window
How to Harvest Cut-and-Come-Again Salad Leaves
The secret to growing a non-stop supply of salad leaves is a that all-important cut-and-come-again harvesting, which is exactly as it sounds. Rather than pulling up the whole plant, use a pair of scissors or just your fingers to snip or pinch off leaves about an inch (2cm) above the base of the plant. Take only the outermost leaves so the central growing point and the lowest leaves are left intact. These will give us our next picking, which should follow within as little as a week or two.
From just a single sowing, I typically get three, four, even five cuts before the plants start to go to seed or the quality drops off. At that point, it’s simply a case of pulling out the old plants, refreshing the compost by mixing in a handful of general-purpose organic fertilizer, then sowing another batch into the container. You can avoid a delay between crops by overlapping containers slightly, so there’s never a fallow period. I do that by succession sowing every month or so into another pot or plug tray to keep a constant supply of luscious leaves coming.
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If you need to go away in summer, help containers remain cool and moist by sinking them into the soil
Success With Salads in Summer
The key thing to watch for in summer is bolting, which is when plants send up a flowering stem in response to heat. Bolted plants taste bitter, and the game’s pretty much up once that happens. Harvesting little and often, keeping plants cool, and watering regularly all help to delay bolting. Some varieties are bred to be more ‘bolt resistant’, so look out for that on seed packets too.
Keep sowing little and often. A new pot every couple of weeks means you’ll always have something at the perfect picking stage. It only takes five minutes, and it’s the very best way to guarantee a constant supply. Grow a range of types – a mix of lettuces, spicy mustards, arugula, and spinach. They not only look beautiful in a container but different plants will thrive at different temperatures, giving you more resilience across the season.
And if you go away for a week or two – we all need a break, right? – just group your containers together in a shady spot. They’ll dry out much more slowly huddled together like this. If it’s feasible, you could also try sinking containers into the soil to help keep roots stay nice and cool. Better still, ask a neighbor for the occasional watering in return for a bag of fresh leaves; a fair exchange, I reckon.
And that’s it - you’re well on your way to the freshest, most satisfying salads you’ve ever eaten! If you give it a go, I’d love to know how you get on. Please do drop a comment below and let me know what you’re growing.
