Carefree summer salad greens

Potted Red Romaine with amaranth and morning glory

Saturday, June 7, 2024

It has taken me years to figure out what the best greens are to keep salads going through the summer.  Lettuce is a crop that loves cool weather.  As soon as the temperatures start hitting the 80"s, they sprout a stalk and flower, called bolting.  As soon as that stalk starts growing, the leaves turn bitter.  So, what are you to do to keep sweet greens going through the dog days of summer?  This is what I have found to work in my Zone 7 summer garden.

I read descriptors and articles on the most heat tolerant lettuces there are and I keep trying new ones to find the ones that last the longest in my summer garden.  There are some that even after they bolt still stay sweet if you harvest first thing in the morning or right after a nice cooling rain.  For my garden, the best summer lettuces have been Royal Oakleaf, Butter King, Bronze Beauty, Butter King, Giant Blue Feather and Red Sails.  Grand Rapids does decent. Red Romaine and Giant Blue Feather seem to be the best self-seeders. 

A few years ago, I started growing different types of greens that have the sweetness of lettuce but can survive the dog days of summer.  So far, the ones that have done well as Hilton Chinese Cabbage, Chinese Bicolor Spinach (an amaranth), any color orach, Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, sprouting broccoli florets and leaves, young kale and sweet mustards Komatsuna Tendergreen and Giant Leaf.  The Giant Leaf and Red Malabar spinach are prolific self seeders.  I also get a few New Zealand spinach volunteers.

The other trick you can do is to practice succession planting.  Planting a few lettuce seeds every 2-3 weeks will keep you in young lettuce leaves through the seasons.  I do do this.  I let my lettuce go to seed and replant the volunteers that sprout while planting out a few seeds if I need to.  I always have various sized lettuce plants going.  How quickly they go from sweet to bitter depends on how dry they get, how much shade they get, and how hot it gets.  Sometimes they will bolt when they are only 4" tall!  

Keeping the greens moist helps they to stay sweet.  If you can plant them in a shadier spot of the garden in summer to give relief from the pounding sun or plant in pots that you can move to a cooler spot, this definitely helps, too.  Make sure in early April you switch to only heat tolerant varieties.  Come mid-August, it will be time to switch back over to the cold, winter hardy types to be ready for fall and winter harvesting.

Some nice green adds to summer salads are tarragon leaves, chives, parsley, thyme, oregano, mint and onion tops.  I always grow Radish Tail because it is just fun and the tender seed pods are fun additions to salads.

All amaranths and celosias are edible, even those grown as ornamentals like Love Lies Bleeding and cockscomb.  So, if you have an abundance of leaves, they make great salads, too.

Doing these things makes sure that I have all the salads I want all the hot summer long.