Tag Archives: salad

Mollusc Madness

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The wet weather we’ve been having recently  has unfortunately meant that conditions have been ideal for slugs and snails to thrive. We’ve quite lucky to have quite a good population of birds that feast on these molluscs. Quite a few time recently I’ve seen a song thrush pull out snails from an ivy bush and proceed to smash their shells open before dispatching them.

If you believe the BBC then an invasion of so called Spanish super slugs is to blame, the wet weather certainly hasn’t helped. On Sunday I was pretty disappointed to see that the local molluscs had demolished our window box salads, completely.

Desimated Salad CropSalad Growing Apple Crate

Luckily they didn’t get inside the apple crates at our Romaine lettuces which have been loving the wet weather and are thriving. So, it’s time to get some more seed in, hopefully in time for some drier weather to arrive!

Growing Salad in Window Boxes

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You can’t beat wandering out into the garden armed with a pair of scissors and coming back a few minutes later with enough fresh veg for a nice healthy salad to accompany your evening meal.

After encountering so many issues with slugs and snails munching my ground planted salads I’ve really taken to planting mixed salad leaves in containers…specifically old metal window boxes.

Mixed Salad in Window Boxes

Mixed Salad in Window Boxes-2

In the window boxes above I’ve got rocket in one and mixed leaves in the other.They only take a couple of weeks to get to the stage when you can start picking leaves. Once they get going I find just a couple of boxes is plenty  enough to keep us in salad. Invariably we neglect to pick them and they bolt or go to seed. When this happens I simply assign them to the compost bin and start again.

As well as regular lettuce leaves other options I’m a fan of are pak choi, beetroot, radish, spinach and chard. So long as you pick the leave while they are nice and young they all make interesting, tasty and colourful salads.