Salad Bar

I know it’s not the kind of salad bar you’re use to, but this is what I call the salad bar in my husbands vegetable garden.

It produces salad greens continuously most of the year and makes it easy for me to pick my salad makings, all in one place.

How does he do this, you ask. By starting at one end of a raised bed. He plants 4 – 6 rows of different types of lettuce. Every two to three weeks he plants another 4 – 6 rows next to the last section planted. He continues to do this until the fall. The bed is 12″ tall, 4′ wide and 16′ long. The rows are planted across the bed. Making short rows and easier to pick.

Have your salad and eat it too.

During the spring, summer and fall as the lettuce makes a head, I cut the lettuce off about 1 – 2 inches above the ground and let it regrow. I can get about 2 -4 cuttings from each plant. This gives the next batch of rows time to mature to beautiful heads ready for the picking.

It really slows down during the winter months, but usually hangs in there and gives us enough salad greens for a salad once few times. We eat mostly broccoli and kale in the winter, not as many salads.