Growing herbs for Salads
Spring and early summer are the ideal time to plant up some herbs to pep up your summer salads
with extra taste and flavours.
Plant them all together to make your harvesting easier at salad time. Choose a sunny spot
and
fork a little extra compost into the soil if you have some available.
- Try chives, garlic chives and welsh onion for an intense savoury bite.
- Leafy herbs such as perennial rocket, chicory, basil and french and japanese parsley will add a mix of flavours to your salad leaves along with the more usual lettuce.
- Variegated landcress with its peppery flavour and the spectacular leaves of red veined sorrel and purple shiso will give bright and tasty splashes of colour
- Mint, Oregano Hot and Spicy and lovage add bold flavours - remember, though, that lovage will get very big and mints spread rapidly and need to be planted alone.
Apart from the mint and lovage, all of these salad herbs will grow really well together in a large container and make an attractive highlight outside your door, just ready for picking.
Use quite a wide container so that you can plant up several different salad herbs, it need not be
very deep, 30cm is fine.
A well drained compost is ideal with some slow release fertiliser
if you have some.
As soon as your herbs are established and growing well, start picking! It’s important to harvest regularly to keep the leaves young and fresh. As well as adding your favourite herb leaves to your salads, why not try making a salad out of just herbs.
Experiment with your own combinations - 3 different herbs at once is enough. If you mix and match too many types together then the individual flavours get lost. All the stems should be removed and the leaves washed and dried well if necessary
- French parsley, mint and tarragon are a winning combination.
- Try sweet basil leaves with oregano and rocket with Italian dishes
- Sliced garden mint and chopped chives will compliment lamb
Add a tablespoon of oil and wine vinegar dressing to your leaves, just enough to moisten them.