ABC wrote in message ...
We are planning on planting vegetables again this summer now that our dogs
are older and will leave the plot alone. We live in the Niagara, Canada
area - very hot and humid summers (it's a fruit belt region) and very cold
winters.

I am looking for advice on growing different greens - specifically for
salads, like the Spring Mix they sell at the grocery stores. I am only
familiar with the usual run of the mill greens like iceberg, romaine, etc.,
but would love some ideas as to what would make a great "salad greens"
garden.

Thanks very much,
Rachel.

First off, it depends on your soil and hours of sunlight in your
garden. Radicchio will do better than other plants in poor soil.
Certain greens will do well in the spring and certain greens will do
well in the fall. A few greens will do well in the heat of summer.
Certain greens will happily overwinter and give you an extra early
salad.

At any rate, as many others have said, you should consider mostly leaf
lettuce (if lettuce is what you want), which is more productive,
better tasting, and earlier cropping than other varieties. There are
many greens that I like, but
I found that in Michigan summer greens do not do well (that eliminates
nasturtium, purslane, and amaranth. In my native Georgia, purslane is
an incredible weed). I found that lettuce is, generally, best grown in
the spring (possibly with a fall planting, overwintering, for an extra
early crop in April). I also have a permanent sorrel plot (a
perennial, but the leaves are a bit sour for me) and a permament mache
plot (an annual that overwinters without cover in MI and is ready in
April before reseeding prodigiously in May)

For fall greens, you have more choice. Most mustards prefer a fall
planting, and that includes arugula and tatsoi. I love tatsoi but it
is not as productive (per square foot) as arugula. What is very
productive is radicchio, which is outrageously expensive in the US but
I bought it cheap in a Windsor, Canada, italian shop (since then I
have been collecting my own seeds). I typically harvest the last heads
in mid-january (under cover). I get a second, smaller crop of arugula
and radicchio in late march (not this year though). Radicchio is
planted in early summer and takes up a certain amount of space-time,
but it is wonderful to make a salad out of a single head, and
productive per square foot.

To me veggie gardening is mostly salad gardening, and I manage to have
at least some crop nine to ten months of the year. In the spring
around here, if you have the time to pick them, dandelion leaves,
daylily shoots, grape tender leaves, field cress are plentiful. You
can also interplant greens with other crops, most notably with garlic
and under tomatoes.