Autumn Salads: Fresh from Your Own Garden

"Salad can be harvested from your own garden almost year-round. July and August are the right time to sow salads for autumn. Especially with colorful cut-and-come-again lettuces and loose-leaf varieties, you can achieve quick, as well as long-term, gardening success. This is because if you don't pull out the entire plant with its roots when harvesting, but only cut or pluck a few leaves, these salads will regrow repeatedly.

However, the seeds of endive, lamb's lettuce (Feldsalat), sugarloaf chicory, and radicchio can also be sown in July and August. Sowing can be done directly into the bed for all these salad varieties. For cut-and-come-again and loose-leaf lettuces, usually a hand's breadth of space between rows is sufficient. Larger varieties, on the other hand, need a bit more space.

If you don't like sharing with slugs, you should sow red-leaved salad varieties, as these slimy creatures generally stay away from them.

Tip: When sowing, mix in some dill, mustard, arugula, or cress with the salad seeds. Then the salad herbs will grow along with the salad. This also makes harvesting easier later, as you'll only need to make one trip to the vegetable patch."

Tip: When sowing, mix in some dill, mustard, arugula, or cress with the salad seeds. Then the salad herbs will grow along with the salad. This also makes harvesting easier later, as you'll only need to make one trip to the vegetable patch."