Salad Ideas, Tips & Guides

Freezing kohlrabi is easy to do, and a great way to keep it on hand whenever you need it.

If you’re a fan of this crispy salad green, then you must know about various types of lettuce so that you can select the best lettuce varieties for your garden. As homegrown lettuce taste as good as tomatoes, you should grow it even if you don’t own a garden–in containers. In your apartment balcony, patio, or windowsill, it’s easy. Check out this article to learn more.

Here are some out-of-the-box DIY Portable Garden Bed Ideas that will make your gardening chores easier!

Salad Days Soon I’ve started sowing salads of varying sorts in my cold greenhouse and a couple of warm days has had them germinating. I stand the pots in a polystyrene fish box and cover them with fleece if really cold weather threatens, but generally I find that the greenhouse is all the protection they need.

Although you can’t buy plants at Chelsea (except for very little ones) there are plenty of shopping opportunities – and if you don’t feel like lugging your purchases round with you, with most things you can window shop and buy them later online. Here’s my eclectic pick of some of the products that caught my eye. One of a series of charming or tho

Learn how to make a salad garden. You don’t need a lot of space or a regular garden for this. If you only have a patio or balcony and a few containers, you can still do this.

Restocking on Salads The first batch of cut-and-come-again salads were getting pretty leggy and when the hot weather arrived they shot up into seed, so I’ve just replanted some of the containers near the kitchen door with some more and have also sown some seed for the next batch.

Not just for a posy or to look at either – you can safely add the petals to your salads or puds as I learnt when I attended Sarah Raven’s lecture on dahlias at her Perch Hill garden.

Would you like to experiment? In theory, plants such as tomatoes, peppers, strawberries or those that set fruits need a lot of sun in order to provide juicy fruits. They grow sometimes in less sunny positions but it’s hard for them to bear fruits in shade.

I’m not a huge fan of summer displays in hanging baskets, except for growing salad, strawberries and tomatoes, but nonetheless I do find them fantastically useful and buy old ones whenever I see them. © Michelle Garrett • The

I was recently invited to judge some local allotments (not, I hasten to add, the one where we have our own plot) and it made me appreciate, yet again, that allotments are about so much more than growing fruit and vegetables. Of course there were fabulously productive plots overflowing with serried ranks of magnificent vegetables, but there are many that may not be the neatest, or grow exhibition quality vegetables, but are clearly cherished nonetheless. Rather than simply award a ‘Best Allotment’ prize, which would inevitably go to the tidiest and most productive plot, I thought it would be fairer and more encouraging to others, if we devised a number of categories. Eventually, after much deliberation, we decided on the following: Best Wo

In an effort to find out why the EU is banning the sale of packets of mixed varieties of vegetable seeds, I had a word with Paolo Arrigo from Seeds of Italy. He tells me that the ban is having an impact throughout Europe, not just the UK, and seed companies are totally mystified as to why it has been introduced. Apparently the o

Having studied the types of compost bins available you might be wondering what can I compost ? What

Artichoke varieties are divided into two categories–Globe andElongated. Both have similar growing needs with identical flavor and texture. The globe or round variety is often used for stuffing while the elongated is served as a side dish. Here are different Types of Artichokes that come under both the varieties!

Coronaviruses (CoV) causes an infection, that ranges from the common cold to more serious diseases. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new type of strain, first discovered in Wuhan, China, in 2019. It’s zoonotic, which means they first develop in animals and then transmitted in humans. Although, it is advisable to seek immediate medical attention if you develop symptoms of the same, here are some Plants for Corona Virus that can help you boost the immunity!

The next month is the time to get on with sowing seeds if you want to extend the growing season with fresh herbs, autumn and winter salads as well as perpetual spinach and chard. It is essential to get on with sowing before light levels and temperatures drop and days shorten – after that leafy crops either fail to germinate, damp off, or concentrate on growing strong root systems and save leaf production for next spring. I’m going to have a go at growing red-leaved and green chicory this winter and am going to root watercress (from a bunch bought at the greengrocer’s) to grow in a pot that I will stand in a deep saucer of water in the greenhouse. This is a method recommended by garden designer Bunny Guinness. I love the idea of picking my own watercress. Sow some f

These few weeks before the weeds really get going and the slugs and snails start to munch everything in sight is such an optimistic time. Each year I find myself thinking that I’ve really got it all sorted this year and the garden is going to be particularly flower-filled and productive. Then, just when the weat

A United Nations of Tomatoes Picking this lovely selection of tomatoes from the greenhouse it occurred to me that  the days are long gone when we just grew British varieties like Ailsa Craig and Moneymaker – here we have American Brandywine, Italian Costoluto de Fiorentino and Russian Black Krim – they all have superb flavour and will look wonderful combined in a salad.

Salad Days The cool weather during most of May might not have been welcomed by us, but the lettuces clearly loved it. They are looking wonderful and we are enjoying daily pickings.

These herbs and vegetables are the most important part of any Italian cookbook! Pick your favorite ones from the list of our Edible Italian Garden!

Most of us are chowing down on flowers all the time without realizing it. Broccoli, cauliflower, and artichokes are all flowers, or flower buds.Clearly, the part of the plant that we often t

You must have seen rabbits eating the carrot tops and leaves, and they are actually tasty food for humans as well. Carrot greens have a slight taste of carrots and can be used in salads and to make pesto and soups. Here are some surprising benefits of carrot greens.

Other than puddle hopping, there’s not much to be done outside when it’s bucketing down, so on a particularly wet day I turned my attention to sorting my seeds. I’ve discarded most of those that are out of date ( but tomato seeds last forever) and written a list of what I need to buy, so that I can get busy planting in a few weeks time. I store my seeds in a sealed plastic box in the cool of the garage which means that those I have saved remain in good condition.  Inevitably the box was in a bit of a muddle, so I’ve now sorted them into months – starting with a few including spinach, rocket and cut and come again salads that I will sow with bottom heat in the greenhouse in February. Then I sat down

There is no point in growing salads at ground level in our garden – they disappear overnight as platoons of slugs and snails emerge from their hiding places in walls and terraces to feast on my efforts. Rather than spend a fortune on wool pellets and nematodes (I keep these for other crops) I grow my salads in containers that can be kept out of their reach. In the kitchen courtyard where I like

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four Our seed potatoes have just arrived and I’ll be putting them in seedtrays to chit. We ordered Foremost as out First Early, Kifli as Second Early, Charlotte for salads and Sarpo Mira and Pink Fir Apple as Maincrops.

You must be familiar with dark green florets of broccoli on thick lime green stems. But do you know there are several varieties available that are skinnier, leafier, purple, white, spirally-pointed, and lime green? Sounds exciting? Time to discover some of the best Types of Broccolis! 

Prepare frozen watermelon sorbet, make it more refreshing for summer by adding ingredients like squeezed lemon juice and fresh mint. The recipe is here.

Find the step-by-step instructions and valuable tips to grow Insulin Plant and harness its potential health benefits. Keep on reading!

Yikes, I wrote this post weeks ago but forgot to publish it – doh!

Check out our all-inclusive list of Edible Flowers To Flavor Your Food and Improve Your Health.

How good would it be if a part of the food you eat comes from your garden? But what if you don’t have a garden–a backyard to grow food. Not enough space even to start a container garden? People living in cities have this problem.

Over Christmas I became aware that rats were visiting, or living in the greenhouse. I don’t like rats at the best of times and I certainly didn’t want to share the greenhouse with them. They had been digging holes in amongst the salads and nipping off the tips of the iris reticulata I was growing in pots. Thes

Herbs add a wonderful array of lip-smacking flavors and inviting fragrances to cuisines. For you to take the most advantage of them, we have compiled a list of the Most Exotic Herbs from different countries that’ll help you make your food a little more extraordinary and a little more healthy!

Highland cows are well known for being perfectly happy outdoors, no matter what the weather does and I’m beginning to think that Japanese salads are of a similar disposition. The outdoor grown ones are far happie

Spring Salads The first batch of salads are now of pickable size – and some of the leaves actually make it as far as the house -although at the moment most are picked a leaf at a time to relish as I work in the garden. I also have a row of the ‘Wasabi’ rocket from Thompson & Morgan growing between the broad beans and it really does have a powerful wasabi-type kick to it.

An unexpected delivery of a microgreens growing kit from a company called Silly Greens reminded me just how packed with flavour newly sprouted seeds are and how convenient it is to have something growing on your windowsill that will add an extra flavour hit to soups, salads and sandwiches. They are packed with nutrients too, which is definitely a benefit in the season of coughs and colds. The idea behind Silly Greens is that y