I am missing my home grown salad

[Mumwhensdinnerready]

I 'm pretty much self sufficient in lettuce from May to October and I grow cucumber, tomatoes and peppers as well.
I hate shop bought lettuce , tasteless imported tomatoes etc.
I avoid them for a while but then I crave some salad and buy some more only to be disappointed as usual.

[PuzzleRocks]

Bumping for you.

[Othersideofthechannel]

Could you satisfy your cravings with salads made with seasonal produce?

I had lambs lettuce salad this evening, with walnuts and apple in it.
Chicory, white cabbage, grated carrots, beetroot also make a good salad base.
My fave winter salad is couscous or quinoa with warm steamed leeks and feta cheese.

[Othersideofthechannel]

"Chicory, white cabbage, grated carrots, beetroot also make a good salad base"

I didn't mean all together.

Oh and spinach, yum!

[FuriousGeorge]

Me too.I waa bemoaning this today.I had to buy shop tmatoes and I just know they'll taste of nothing.

Can you get a portable cloche and sow some lettuce? I have a polytunnel and am still getting lettuce from there.Roll on spring though!

[Mumwhensdinnerready]

I have a cold greenhouse but have tried and failed with so called winter salad greens.
I do use some of the ingrediants suggested but they all seem second best compared to fresh summer leaves. And much as I love cooked cabbage ( I have a good crop of curly Kale this year), I don't like raw cabbage.

I think maybe if we stick to eating seasonally then we appreciate it when foods come back into season?

[Othersideofthechannel]

Yes, it's not the same. I miss fresh tomatoes and strawberries.

I was saying to DS at breakfast (who asked for strawberries) about how much we will appreciate them when they are back in season.

[snorkle]

I never have any success with winter lettuce leafs & I'm missing salads too though we did have a home grown sweet pepper from the kitchen windowsill with a shop lettuce tonight which was lovely.

Can you tell us what sort of polytunnel FuriousGeorge and what type of lettuces & when you sowed them and so on and so forth. I was thinking of buying a small tunnel with a garden centre voucher I was given for xmas, but am not sure if I should get a fleece or plastic one and exactly what I'd use it for - but winter salad would be lovely...

[madlentileater]

yes, I have some lambs lettuce and chard but it's all pathetically small

[CuttySark]

You need one of these.

[Takver]

What winter salad leaves are you growing MWDR? ATM we're mostly eating pak choi, chinese cabbage, a mild mustard green, mibuna, baby chard, baby kale and some lettuce but not enough to make the bulk of a salad. Usually I'd also have mizuna but for some reason I didn't put any in this autumn. They're all in a tunnel, I've also got some more outside under cloches which are ok but don't put on bulk so much after being picked. I would have expected a cold greenhouse to be better than a tunnel - mind you depends where you are, we are in Wales so not super cold, but pretty exposed & windy.
Overall I would say we have better salad leaves through the winter than in summer as they don't go to seed so fast & are tastier, plus maybe I put more effort into the greens as I like gardening in the tunnel out of the rain

[Mumwhensdinnerready]

Takver I haven't tried to grow any winter salad leaves this year as had failed miserably in previous years. I tried some of the ones you mentioned and while they germinated well enough they never really got going after that.
I wonder whether I should get them going earlier? I'm usually overrun with summer plants in the spring and any long term planning for winter gets left. I'll get a selection of seeds this year and try sewing them when I do the spring stuff.
We're in the north east but mostly very sheltered. My poor greenhouse got a battering in high winds last month when the door blew open. By morning the garden was studded with shards of glass

[Takver]

about the greenhouse, the winds can be really grim here too sometimes as we are near the coast.
I generally sow winter salad stuff in late July for going outside under cloches, or in mid August for growing in the tunnel. Then I keep sowing about once a month, but mostly to carry us through into spring - I just transplanted the seedlings from end November & they are still teeny tiny . . .