variety in summer salads

[ashleighParticipant]

hello,

last year the shop we supply got grumpy when the summer salad was overwhelmingly lettuce based – even though there were lots of colours of lettuce AND we put edible flowers in.

the main other ingredients that i put in are red orach, nasturtium leaves, small leaves of rainbow chard plus some fiddly things for colour/texture like red amaranth and parcel but i’d like to move away from the fiddly stuff. is there anything else i’ve not thought of that grows in summer and isn’t too fiddly?

[charlesModerator]

Hello Ashleigh
My salad has sorrel for lemon flavour, both Broad and Buckler leaved, pea shoots, a few tops of broad beans and then basil, which is fiddly but really worth it for the flavour.

[TesiParticipant]

I’m wondering…you can eat the foliage/leaves from Ocas. Or you can put them raw into salads. Would that be an idea?

[Don FoleyParticipant]

Hi Tesi,
You can certainly eat the leaves, they are very refreshing.
Don.

[ashleighParticipant]

ah, sorrel! i have some already so that will go in, thanks.

and basil – i tried lettuce leaf basil last year and that’s less fiddly, hadn’t thought to put that in the salads but i’m sure that would be very popular

pea shoots great 🙂 the cooking pea variety ‘bury black’ grows incredibly well here, it’s tougher in texture but so pretty as it has many extra curly tendrils to cope with the winds! and lovely purple flowers so i will try putting more of that in. i haven’t tried conventional pea shoots yet but it’s on my list.

i have a few oca but i wonder if harvesting the leaves might affect the yield but i will nibble on some for myself rather than selling it.

re colourful lettuces that provide big leaves in summer – the best i have found so far is Exbury which is promoted as a baby leaf but gave me huge deep red leaves when i let it be and didn’t go bitter

[Author]

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