By William Terry Kelley
University of
Georgia
Think about adding some novel vegetables to your garden this
spring to make your salads tastier and more healthful. By the
time you fire up the summertime grill and start blowing gnats
away, your healthy salad choices can be ready.
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South Georgia gardeners can start planting these crops in late
winter. North Georgia gardeners should wait until March.
Arugula, or rocket or roquette, is
a leafy green that looks a lot like radish leaves. It’s tender
and has a slightly bitter, mustard-like flavor. Arugula can be
used as a flavoring ingredient in soups and vegetable dishes and
makes your salad a bit zestier.
You can grow it in much the same way you do leaf lettuce, with
plants 4 to 6 inches apart in rows 18 to 24 inches apart.
Bok choy, or pak choi, is a
Chinese cabbage related to broccoli, cauliflower and chard. It
has wide, white stalks that lead to a wide, dark green leaf. It
can be stir-fried, cooked in soup, eaten raw in salads or cooked
like spinach.
Grow bok choy as you would grow broccoli or cabbage. You can grow
Napa types in the same way, but they have a leafier, tighter head
with crinkled leaves and a wide, white midrib.
Escarole, endive and radicchio are all types of chicory that
form a green or red, loose-leaf head. Escarole has a broader leaf
than endive. Endive has ragged leaves that curl at the end. The
center is mild and yellow-white, while the outer leaves are more
bitter. Radicchio is shaped like cabbage with shiny, smooth, red
leaves with a white midrib.
These can all be used in salads or cooked in other dishes. They
can be grown in the garden in the same way as lettuce, allowing
10 to 12 inches between plants. They add flavor and texture to
salads.
Cilantro, or Chinese parsley, is a
type of coriander. It looks like parsley with broader leaf tops.
Popular in Mexican and Chinese dishes, it has a pungent, musty,
spicy and aromatic flavor. It can be used in stir fry, salsa,
salads, stews, meats, soups and pickles. You can grow it in the
garden much like regular parsley.
Red-leaf and green-leaf lettuces are loose-leaf types
that don’t form heads. They may range from light to dark green,
red and bronze. Grow them just like other leaf lettuces. The
leaves may be ruffled or smooth. They can add color and texture
to salads, or use them in sandwiches or as garnishes.
Romaine lettuce, or Cos lettuce,
is an upright type with a loose head of cupped leaves and a
distinctive midrib. Plant it in rows 12 to 14 inches apart with 8
to 12 inches between plants.
Romaine has very big, crunchy leaves that are more blanched
toward the heart of the plant. Many salads you order in
restaurants contain Romaine lettuce. Grow it as you would other
lettuces, but space it a little farther apart.
Swiss chard and beet greens both belong to the same
family, except chard lacks the fleshy root the beet has. Chard
has large, fleshy, dark green or red leaves with fleshy, white
stalks. Grow chard and beet greens as you do common garden beets.
Use chard in salads, stuffings and egg dishes, and cook it as a
vegetable.
Beet greens are simply harvested from the top of the plants. If
you don’t want to harvest the beet, you can plant them closer
together.
(Terry Kelley is a Cooperative Extension horticulturist with
the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.)
