Our three large polytunnels are packed full of the winter crop of oriental salad leaves at the moment.
So there will be plenty of tasty salad packs in the boxes during December (if you don’t see one in your regular box, you could order one as an extra item).
These are mainly oriental brassica varieties that make ideal baby salad leaves over the winter.They are tolerant of the cold weather (if grown under cover) and will 'cut and come again’ in the short winter days until March next year.
Along with the usual rocket, mustards, chicory, mibuna, winter purslane and frilled leaf mizunas, this year I have included some new varieties to add some extra diversity of tastes, colours and shapes to the salad mix. Three of the new ones are the wonderfully named Green in Snow, Serifon and Namenia. Serifon are hard to tell apart, they are a bit like rocket but with broader serrated leaves and a slightly mustardy flavour. Namenia is a Japanese salad green that looks like a broader leaved mizuna.
We sow the salad seeds into module trays in September. It is best to do this a week or two before the autumn equinox so that they are ready to plant out in the tunnels by the last two weeks of October at the latest. Any later and the shorter days and the drop in light levels will greatly slow down their early growth and delay the crop.
I am also trying out some heritage varieties of winter hardy lettuces for the first time, Jack Ice, Reine de Glaces and Winter Marvel. The lettuces tend to be slower to grow than the oriental salad and every winter I wonder if they will ever get to full size while they sit there week after week without getting much bigger. This year though the unusually mild temperatures in November have given them a big boost and some should be ready to pick before Christmas.
I am hoping that December temperatures will be closer to normal. Most of November was freakishly mild, giving us a glut of winter cabbages and kales that normally we’d expect to be picking in the new year. I’d be grateful for some good hard frosts on the field now to slow them back down and also kill off the slugs and moulds that have been thriving in the mild damp weather!
John English
Head Grower
