Rocket
How to Grow Rocket in the UK Rocket is a quick way to add peppery leaves to meals, even from a pot beside the door. Annual salad rocket gives fast pickings and needs repeat sowings, while perennial wild rocket grows more slowly and can keep producing for much longer. Choose the type you want, keep […]
Sorrel
How to Grow Sorrel in the UK Sorrel is a hardy perennial leaf crop with a distinctly sharp, lemony flavour. A few plants can supply small pickings for mixed salads and cooking over many seasons. Keep the soil comfortably moist and harvest young leaves regularly for the best texture. Hardy perennial leaves Sun or partial […]
Spinach
How to Grow Spinach in the UK Fresh spinach is a useful crop for a small vegetable bed or a generous patio pot. Pick tender young leaves for salads or let them grow larger for cooking, then return for another modest harvest while the plants remain productive. True spinach, Spinacia oleracea, generally gives its best […]
Swiss Chard
How to Grow Swiss Chard in the UK Swiss chard provides generous leaves and broad, colourful stalks over a long season. It is a leaf beet, so its roots stay small rather than swelling like beetroot. A spring sowing followed by another in midsummer can keep a small household picking for months. Productive leafy vegetable […]
Tatsoi
How to Grow Tatsoi in the UK Tatsoi produces handsome rosettes of spoon-shaped leaves with crisp stems and a gentle mustard flavour. Pick young leaves for salads or let plants grow larger for the kitchen. A late-summer sowing is a useful starting point in the UK, giving this leafy brassica cooler conditions in which to […]
Lettuce (Loose Leaf 1)
Grow Loose Leaf Lettuce for Regular Leaf Picking A few well spaced lettuce plants can supply a small salad without being cut down at every harvest. This guide focuses on picking outer leaves from individual loose leaf rosettes while the centre continues to grow. Start with a modest planting, keep replacement seedlings coming and let […]
Lettuce (Loose Leaf 2)
Grow Baby Leaf Lettuce for Cut and Come Again Salads A small patch of young lettuce leaves can make a fresh salad long before full rosettes develop. This guide uses closer sowing for baby leaves, followed by careful clipping above the growing points. Expect a limited run of good pickings, then replace the crop. A […]
Purslane
How to Grow Purslane in the UK Summer purslane brings crisp, succulent leaves and a pleasantly sharp flavour to the salad bowl. Grow edible Portulaca oleracea from labelled culinary seed, give it warmth and sunshine, then take small repeat harvests. It is a summer annual, quite different from winter purslane. Edible summer purslane Warm season […]
Radicchio
How to Grow Radicchio in the UK Radicchio brings crisp leaves, white ribs and a pleasantly bitter flavour to autumn and winter meals. It is a leaf chicory, grown either for a full head or for young leaves. The most useful starting point is a summer sowing of a variety matched to your intended harvest […]
Cress
How to Grow Cress in the UK Garden cress is one of the quickest ways to put something home grown on a plate. A small tray on a bright windowsill can provide peppery shoots within a week or two, and repeated sowings keep the supply fresh. The familiar seedling crop is only one stage of […]
