[gardeners] Salad Greens
Liz Albrook (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Wed, 17 Dec 1997 12:17:18 +0000
After making the earlier post I checked the mail box to discover a
Cook's Garden catalogue. It's just about my favorite seed catalogue,
mostly because of the many varieties of salad green seeds they offer.
It is also the catalogue I'm least likely to buy my salad seeds from
because I don't know what to buy and what not to buy. I could easily
spend over $100 just on greens seeds.
Some of you have a lot of experience with the various greens for
salads. I thought that since it's catalogue and ordering season we
could share our knowledge and maybe help out poor ignorant folk such
as me, myself and I figure out what to order.
A couple of my favorite non-lettuce salad greens are arugula
selvetica and radish leaves. Arugula selvetica -- the one with
small, deeply cut leaves often called wild arugula -- has a taste
that large-leaved cultivated arugula can't match. It's peppery -
tangy, an instant pick me up for a simple sandwich or mixed green
salad. It has a clearer flavor to my taste buds than does cultivated
arugula. I find that cultivated arugula is not as spicy and has
"horse piss" overtones.
Radish leaves were a mistake that worked. I sent Ray out to pick
leaves for a salad and he picked radish along with the others. It
took me a while to track down what tasted so good. Radish leaves are
peppery and earthy but lack the tang of arugula. There's a hint of
radish flavor to them -- they almost make your nose tingle. We were
eating salads for a while there that were almost half radish leaves.
(I also sauteed radish seed pods and they were hot and tasty.)
The other thing I enjoyed greatly in salads were the thinnings from
the mustard family plants. We had turnips, kohlrabi, mustards,
collards and a few others I can't remember. When very young these
didn't have a lot of "mustardy" taste but provided some "tooth" to
the salads.
None of my mache seeds germinated. I don't know why.
Anyone want to share their experiences? I'd like to know what you
consider a must have item (mine are arugula selvetica and radish
leaves) and what you wouldn't bother with.
Liz