I saw a James Martin programme earlier this year and he had a guest from the Patchwork Farm Growing Communities in Hackney. They grow salad leaves on patches of land in North London. They grow a wide variety of salad leaves organically and practice crop rotation throughout the years
This inspired two of us to start something similar initially in two raised beds. We currently have a great crop of leaves including Radicchio (Pallas Rossi), Mizuna and Kmatsuna Samurai which is similar to mustard and cabbage leaves; this last one can be used in stirfry and salads. We also have tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, herbs and courgettes but they are not as far on as the salad leaves. We use organic compost and feed.
It was nice to go into the garden and cut some of each leaves for tonight’s salad.
The leaves were used in a chicken salad with homemade low carb croutons and a simple dressing made of 3 parts extra virgin olive oil, 1 part apple cider vinegar, a teaspoon on Maille Dijon mustard and seasoning. I had a side of steamed sprouts and broccoli.
Now we need to plan our next salad leaves crops. Its going to be a challenge getting that right so we have continuous leaves across the seasons. Does anyone have any ideas?
