Starting a salad bowl...

Was thinking of planting in a container by my back door a salad bowl mixture. Thought maybe different lettuces, etc.
Has anyone done this, or have suggestions?

I've always wanted to make a salad bowl garden. So this year I decided to try it. The only good place that had plenty of sunshine throughout most of the day was right smack dab in the front yard. I decided my salad bowl would be an unused pond form. You can see more photos at this link. I'll keep the slide show updated as things get bigger.
http://uniquetreasures.phanfare.com/slideshow.aspx?username=uniquetreasures&album_id=594602§ion_id=847128


There's not a whole lot to eat in there at the moment, but I'm planning on having some delicious salads this summer by walking out the door and picking what I want.

Janet

I have two of them. There's one on each side of the attached garage so even if it's raining I can go out and pick basil, thyme, spinach and tomatoes. I expect the spinach to be gone by the time I harvest the tomatoes but it's been so excellent that I'll plant again for a fall crop. I also put lettuce in the rose garden (just a few steps from the garage) and more beyond the kitchen door. They're all aside from the vegetable garden.

I hadn't thought about planting spinach. Great idea! I have some wild spinach growing in the back yard. It's supposed to be good in salads too. It went bezerk over the winter. I will try and transplant some of it into the "salad bowl". Thanks for a great idea.

You're quite welcome. Lettuce straight from the garden is great but it's always gone a few days before the tomatoes arrive, which makes me wonder about a BLT.

Here's the lettuce.

Wonderful idea. Last year (very early in season) I started salad greens: lettuce (separate and mixed), spinach, and mescluns in large containers, then added tomatoes, squash, and cucumber when it was time. The greens were wonderful. I picked salads until summer. I used Park and Burpee catalogs that year. Burpee had 2 very fancy ones that were mixes. They were great. I started hand picking (slow process) then started using scissors to cut areas out; they always fill back in fast.

This year I used 13 smaller 2 gallon buckets. I had 3 types of spinach (all but one bolted by now), a mesclun and a niche (liked neither), and 8 mixes of lettuce (most have a mix of 5 types of colors and shapes). The single spinach and the mixed lettuce are still going well. They are beautiful. I think the salad greens go better with a vinagrette than something heavy like ranch dressing. I have given clippings in a baggie to relatives who made salads over several nights and raved about them. My absolute favorite is a mix of 24 from the cheapest one (Ace hardware carried it this year) that does not list what is present. My next favorite is Burpee Gourmet mix (5 lettuces) that was available from Kmart and other places. I really like mixes that have red and spotted lettuce in them. You can get different colors and shapes in the mixes. Next year I will get the fancy mixes again and add red lollo rosso to them to get the frilly red one.

It gets really hot here in the summer. An advantage to having smaller containers that a human can move is that I can get them in some afternoon shade this summer. (My tomatoes really cook in this heat in the large 22 gallon containers, even though I water a lot and use a water meter. I may try some shade fabric for them.)

Because it gets so hot here, I use MiracleGro moisture control potting soil but also this year added coir peat and moisture crystals to everything. The coir peat bricks are really nice, they wet fast, and so much better to use than regular peat moss. I added coir peat and the moisture crystals to my real garden when planting out too (as well as compost). My garden has never looked so good - mostly due to the compost. But - I should not have to water as much this year. ;)

The package says to plant every 2 weeks to get new lettuce. I will try that soon in the containers where I pulled out the bolted spinach and oddball mesclun/niche. I tried to plant lettuce last fall but had no luck; not sure why yet (old seed, bad storage by me, too hot to sprout?). I have 2 unopened seed packets.

The seeds should still germinate but may or may not have some failures along the way but if you seed enough you'll never even notice what didn't grow.

I love the variety of lettuces and, to me, anything is better than the old iceburg lettuce. It's the poorest of all for nutrition and isn't even pretty in a real salad bowl.

I always plant Black Seeded Simpson lettuce in my big flower pots on the patio. We live in Naperville, a western Chicago suburb, and we have been really enjoying lettuce for three weeks...even tho the weather here has been Very Cold for May. I had to cover my pots several times to prevent freezing! I've used Miracle Gro fertilizer once a week.
I tried radishes for the first time this year. I don't think I will do this again, as I only harvested about a dozen good sized ones.
I also planted onion sets in pots and they're quite good, altho I'm harvesting them when they are small because I want to use the pots for my annual flowers.
I also planted spinach in pots as I do every year, and we've had several small leaf salads.
I really recommend Zone 5 gardeners try lettuce and spinach in large pots because it can be planted earlier than in the regular garden and even in ordinary soil both vegies have preformed well for me...
Jean