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Celebrating salads!

Leigh Tate

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Location: Southeastern U.S. - Zone 7b

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posted 1 year ago

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When I was a kid, spotting the first robin of spring as a cause for celebration. I still enjoy that, but as a gardener, the first homegrown salad of spring is what I really enjoy celebrating nowadays. I'm so excited with this year's first salad, that I have to share! Some of the ingredients I planted last fall, some are foraged, and some were made last year and stored for salad occasions.

Greens: kale, chicory, wild lettuce, cultivated lettuce, dandelion, turnip, and chickweed. Also, hardboiled egg, feta goat cheese, and last summer's cherry tomatoes preserved in olive oil and vinegar (which also serves as the dressing).

Is anyone else celebrating salads?

2024_1st-salad.JPG

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Anne Miller

steward

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Location: USDA Zone 8a

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posted 1 year ago

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I like to celebrate salads with edible flowers because salads with flowers are so pretty.

Squash blossoms make a pretty salad.

Here is an article about 15 flowers for salads:

https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/home-lifestyle/gardening/g32723510/edible-flowers/

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Leigh Tate

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Posts: 5407

Location: Southeastern U.S. - Zone 7b

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posted 1 year ago

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Anne, I have violets just starting to bloom here and there. I'll have to try some in my next salad.

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Joe Hallmark

pollinator

Posts: 335

Location: Central Texas

posted 1 year ago

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I started late so no. My greens and such have all sprouted but nowhere close to ready to eat. The asparagus is coming up though so i can deal with the no greens for a few weeks more.

Well are radish greens any good? I have a daikon that survived the freeze and if I go down to the deer field probably a turnip or two…

Leigh Tate

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Location: Southeastern U.S. - Zone 7b

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Joe, I put young daikon leaves in salads, when they are the most mild flavored. Very tasty.

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Joylynn Hardesty

master pollinator

Posts: 5069

Location: Due to winter mortality, I stubbornly state, zone 7a Tennessee

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posted 1 year ago

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radish greens are great! Similar to mustard, but it's a different flavored heat.

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Rachel Lindsay

gardener

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Location: Tennessee

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posted 1 year ago

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I have only just got my lettuce to sprout...but if I can learn to forage for a clean source of dandelions, I could celebrate with a dandelion salad!

Apparently my great-grandparents in northern Indiana (almost a hundred years ago now!) amused their children very much with their excitement over harvesting and enjoying the first dandelion leaves each spring. Sounds like they were really smart people--I need to learn to be like them!

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Timothy Norton

master gardener

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Location: Upstate NY, Zone 5, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

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posted 1 year ago

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This will be my first year growing/foraging salad greens. Fingers crossed!

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Riona Abhainn

pollinator

Posts: 873

Location: Clackamas Oregon, USA zone 8b

posted 1 year ago

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Because I overwintered lettuce (it stopped growing in Nov. but stayed alive in "stasis") and I planted radishes in early Oct. and just harvested them the last day of Feb. (they grew allbeit slowly and weren't very impressive in size), added some spinich from the grocery and we had a salad of it. I love salads more the older I get, somehow they taste better and better.

Will I overwinter next year? Honestly probably not, I'll likely harvest everything in Dec. and call it a day and plant again in Feb./Mar.

Yummy salad!

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Mark Griffin

Posts: 53

Location: Piedmont, North Carolina - 7b/8a

posted 1 year ago

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I also overwintered lettuce this year. First time I have done this and it worked great. I was definitely celebrating as I began harvesting some weekly beginning in January. As usual, however, I overdid it and now there is no more celebration, just groans from the family as I try to feed them more lettuce. The warm weather is beginning to send some of it to seed, so the pace of harvest has picked up and the eye rolls of the family are almost audible when they sit down to dinner!

I will probably overwinter lettuce again next year. Just a lot less. And then I can plant another round in early February, as usual, so there is a more manageable pace of harvest.

I am also currently watching second year asparagus plants send up sprouts. Very cool. There will definitely be a celebration next year when all that waiting and expectation pays off!

Derek Thille

gardener

Posts: 414

Location: Southern Manitoba...bald(ish) prairie, zone 3ish

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posted 1 year ago

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I was moving snow earlier this week.

I enjoy salads, but honestly, my new-ish favourite is Jerusalem salad (aka a Middle Eastern salad or other names)...basically tomatoes, cucumber, and mint. When finely chopped it looks different and is so tasty with good fresh ingredients (so don't bother trying with supermarket coloured cardboard ingredients).

I'm getting to a point where I'd like to gather a bit of stuff...we ought to have enough dandelions in the yard at our acreage that perhaps we can time things right and harvest some...we shall see.

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Donna Lynn

pollinator

Posts: 211

Location: Mid-Michigan, USA

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posted 1 year ago

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Sort of along the lines of this thread... here in Michigan most cultivated greens do not overwinter. However, last year I planted some yellow bok choi (don't recall the exact name and my seed packets are tucked away still) and several small plants that didn't get large enough to harvest survived unprotected in my raised bed through the below zero temps we had here briefly. Even now, after several freeze-thaw cycles, the very centers of most of the plants still look alive. I never expected that to happen, but I may have found my new favorite green to grow here!

Leigh Tate

author & steward

Posts: 5407

Location: Southeastern U.S. - Zone 7b

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posted 1 year ago

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April salad: lettuce, kale, chickweed, asparagus, radish, hard-boiled egg, goat feta.

Yummy!

April-salad.JPG

Blog: 5 Acres & A Dream
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Leigh Tate

author & steward

Posts: 5407

Location: Southeastern U.S. - Zone 7b

3138

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posted 9 months ago

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June is about the last month I can have lettuce in my salads because this is the month when the lettuce starts to bolt. It's also getting too hot for my beloved snow peas, so we enjoy every last bite!

June salad: lettuce (both cultivated and wild), snow peas, daikon radish leaves, crumbled goat feta, and the first of the volunteer cherry tomatoes.

June2024-salad.JPG

Blog: 5 Acres & A Dream
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