By Wayne McLaurin
University of Georgia

You can easily grow your own gourmet greens for a fraction of the
cost of those expensive salad mixes in the stores.

Most salad greens are cool-weather crops. Start sowing salad
green seeds in September and continue through late October,
according to where you garden in Georgia.

If you’re a salad lover, plant about 5 feet of row of salad
greens per week, in successive plantings through the fall, in
addition to your regular lettuce plantings.

Seeds of salad greens are sold as mixtures (as “mesclun”) or
separately as varieties. The mixtures may contain any combination
of lettuces, chicories, dandelion greens, cresses, arugulas,
chervil, endive, fennel, parsley, oriental greens, mustards,
purslane, orach and mache (corn salad).

Tangy, mild, bitter

Some of these greens are tangy. Others are mild or bitter. When
these flavors, colors and textures are combined with a zesty
dressing, the salad is no longer a mundane experience — it’s a
nutritious eating adventure.

Arugula, also called rocket or
roquette, is a hardy member of the mustard family. With a toasty,
pungent flavor, arugula is a favorite for this mix.

Resembling dandelion greens, arugula is rich in beta carotene and
higher in vitamin C than almost any other salad green. It’s
considered an aphrodisiac by some eastern Mediterranean people.

Endive is in the same family as
lettuce. With smooth, pale, elongated heads, endive has more
flavor than many types of lettuce. Curly endive, sometimes called
chicory, has curly-edged, green
leaves.

Escarole, another relative of
chicory, has broad, wavy green leaves with a pleasant slightly
bitter flavor.

Radicchio, or red chicory, adds
wonderful red color and zesty, mildly bitter flavor to salads. It
often grows in small heads.

Mache, also called corn salad, has
velvety leaves and a mild taste.

Watercress has pungent sprigs that
resemble parsley. Cresses have a peppery flavor, while mustards
“bite” the tongue.

Plant shallow

Plant salad green seeds a quarter-inch deep in rows 4 to 6 inches
apart.

Harvest the greens when young, with scissors. Cut the young
leaves about a half-inch above the soil line and the leaves may
regrow for a second harvest. Or cut the greens at ground level
for a single harvest.

Seed companies that offer a variety of gourmet salad-green seeds
for home gardeners include:

• Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Foss Hill Road, Albion, ME
  04910-9731.




• Nichols Garden Nursery, 1190 North Pacific Highway, Albany,
  OR 97321-4598.




• Shepherd’s Garden Seeds, 30 Irene St., Torrington, CT 06790.




• Territorial Seed Company, P.O. Box 157, Cottage Grove, OR
  97424.




• The Cook’s Garden, P.O. Box 535, Londonderry, VT 05148
  (catalog $1).

(Wayne McLaurin is a professor of horticulture with the
University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences.)