Salad leaves for all seasons by Charles Dowding

Author:Charles Dowding [Charles Dowding]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857844682
Publisher: UIT Cambridge Ltd.
Published: 2018-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

Late autumn: (from front) endive, oriental leaves and rocket after seven weeks of harvests.

These leaves, descended from blue flowering wild chicory, deserve to be grown more than they are, in Britain at least. Their trademarks are a wide range of colours and flavours, often intriguingly bitter-sweet, and an ability to thrive in the dark days of late autumn and winter.

While being members, like lettuce, of the Compositae plant family, endives and chicories are different in two important ways. Firstly, as well as being more bitter, their leaves are higher in dry matter, so they offer plenty to chew on, and store well after picking. Secondly, they need sowing later in the year, because the lengthening days of spring encourage them to flower, while the shortening days of autumn lead to plenty of leafy growth and also to substantial hearts when they have been sown in high summer. These are useful assets when balanced against lettuce’s relatively lower-quality growth and more watery flavour in late season.

Growing these exciting hearts is not difficult. By growing hearts as well as leaves, you can enjoy great contrasts of flavour and colour. Northern Italians eat chicory hearts hot, looking on them as we do cabbage. Their more bitter flavour takes getting used to, but they are less prone to pests than cabbage and make a beautiful feature in the autumn garden.

A further possibility is to grow special varieties of chicory for forcing. Their roots are dug up in autumn and brought indoors to a dark, warmer place to force pale, bittersweet chicons.

29 June: endives and brassicas in the seed tray (to prick out) were sown just three days earlier.

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