Salad days in the depths of winter

URBAN FARMER:Apart from frost protection on cold nights you'll be surprised how winter-hardy many salad crops are, writes FIONNULA FALLON

WHEN GLOOMY grey skies and torrential downpours test the resolve of even the most green-fingered urban farmer, and just going outdoors, let alone working outdoors, can seem like a chore, indulge instead in a spot of gentle indoor gardening.

For despite the fact that it’s now early winter, you can still grow a wide selection of salad crops to give a steady supply of crisp and nutritious baby leaves right throughout the winter months. Scarlet kale, frilled mustard, rocket, mizuna, canton pak choy, choy sum, texel greens, cavolo nero, Greek cress – there’s a whole host of colourful and flavour-filled salad crops that can be sown in pots indoors to germinate, before being placed outside on a protected, sunny window sill.

You’ll have to give them some frost protection on cold winter nights but you’d be surprised how winter-hardy many of them are. Alternatively, once successfully germinated, you can grow them in an unheated glasshouse or polytunnel throughout the winter months.

In the Phoenix Park’s walled garden, OPW gardeners Meeda Downey and Brian Quinn will have to wait a while longer, until the much-anticipated glasshouse is eventually reinstated as part of the ongoing restoration of the walled kitchen garden, before they get the opportunity to plant these winter salad crops.

However, in another Victorian walled garden some 120 miles away, organic gardener Emer O’Flaherty grows an exotic array of these salad leaves, which she supplies to many of the country’s top restaurants.

Her business, Springfield Walled Garden Organics, which is based in the 2.5-acre walled garden of Springfield Castle in Dromcollogher, Co Limerick, has been run on a strictly organic basis with the assistance of volunteers or WWOOFers (World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farmers, check out www.wwoof.ie) since its establishment five years ago, and clients now include many award-winning eateries, such as Cork restaurants Jacques and Jacobs On The Mall, as well as Limerick restaurants White Sage, River Bistro and the Clarion Hotel.

Emer sows her salad crops in polytunnels right up to the middle of October, sourcing the organic seed from the UK, Canada and the US to ensure a wide range of tastes and colours.

She says: “I buy seed from Moles (www.molesseeds.co.uk), Kings (www.kingseeds.com), Wild Garden Seed in Oregon (www.wildgardenseed.com) and Richters in Toronto (www.richters.com), and grow dozens of different types – perpetual spinach, chard, winter lettuces, mustards, baby kale, beetroot, sorrel, endive, Chinese cabbage and winter purslane among others.

“Along with taste, interesting leaf colour and shape is also very important. I grow three different colours of Swiss chard, for example, including the bright red Vulcan, the pink Flamingo and yellow Canary. The peppery mustards are another crop with nice leaf colour and leaf shape. I grow Ruby Streaks, which has a lacy purple leaf, and Golden Streaks, which has frilled, pale green leaves. Then there’s Red Giant which has large, purplish-red leaves and Osaka, with a scalloped, purple leaf. I also grow lots of different varieties of hardy lettuce, many with freckled or spotted leaves.”

While you can sow seed of many of these varieties outdoors right up to the beginning of October, or in an unheated polytunnel/glasshouse until almost the beginning of November, Emer recommends a warm(ish) spot indoors to encourage germination at this time of year. Once they’ve germinated, quickly move them outdoors, either to a protected sunny spot like a south-facing window-sill, or into an unheated polytunnel/glasshouse. If the weather is particularly cold, give them some temporary protection in the way of garden fleece. Emer says: “What I always say is that if it’s a two-jumpers-and-a-coat kind of day, then the crops will need some protection, even in a polytunnel. If you’re cold, then they’re cold.”

Treat them as a cut-and-come-again crop, but be gentler than you would be with a summer crop as, given the time of year, growth is much slower and plants will take longer to recover. Keep a careful eye out for any stray weeds that might hide in amongst the plants – you don’t want to accidentally eat them along with your salad – and water regularly. Don’t soak them, however, as excessive watering can encourage diseases.

Along with the seed companies mentioned above, Thompson Morgan also do an interesting range of salad leaves mixes suitable for sowing now and throughout the year. Look out for their “Stir-Fry” mix (it includes mizuna, red mustard, texel greens, cavolo nero and canton pak choy), their “Oriental Mustard” mix and “Herby Salad” mix (salad rocket, Greek cress, chicory puntarelle, mizuna and giant red mustard).

And if you’d like to learn a lot more about growing organic salad crops, Emer (who also works with students from the nearby organic college, An tIonad Glas) is always happy to take on volunteers, or WWOOFers, with accommodation offered on site. She can be contacted by e-mail at walledgarden@wildmail.com or by phone on 086 3846483.

Alternatively, read Joy Larkcoms book The Organic Salad Garden (with photography by Roger Phillips), which is considered the definitive guide to the subject.

Autumn Onions

If you’re one of the hardy varieties of urban farmer who stays staunchly outdoors even in the middle of a downpour, then you’ll also be interested in growing some of the winter-hardy onions from sets. Unfortunately, the OPW gardeners won’t be doing the same, as their summer onion crop fell victim to onion white rot earlier this year. This nasty, persistent disease will stay in the soil for up to eight years, and can affect all members of the onion family, including chives, shallots, spring onions and leeks.

As a result, Meeda and Brian have reluctantly decided to limit their onion crop to summer varieties, tucked away in a far-away corner of the garden and grown only from seed, as a way of curtailing the spread of the disease.

Luckier gardeners, however, can still plant onion sets without impunity (just make sure they’re certified disease-free). Give them a sunny, fertile position and very well-drained soil (incorporate some grit into heavy soil before planting, but don’t manure, as this encourages overlush growth). Suitable onion varieties to watch out for include Senshyu, Snowball, Shakespeare, Radar, Electric, Troy and Bianco while later in the month you can also try growing the shallot variety, Echalote Grise.

Plant the sets roughly 3cm-6cm deep and between 12cm-20cm apart, depending on the variety, and watch out for birds which often pull the young bulbs out of their planting holes. If this happens, very gently replant them, taking care not to damage the young developing roots. Watch out, also, for weeds, although this will be less of a problem in autumn than it is with main summer cropping onions.

Planted now, your autumn onions will give you a useful crop in early to mid-summer of next year, filling that small but significant gap before spring-planted onion crops are ready to be harvested.

So get your warm winter woollies on now and start planting, for a little work outdoors now will pay rich dividends in the hungry months ahead. And as all we urban farmers know only too well, it’s always important to mind the gap.

The OPW’s walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Café and Ashtown Castle. The gardens are open daily from 10am to 4.30pm

Next week Urban Farmer in Property will cover winter root vegetables

Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer

WHAT TO: sow, plant and do now

Sow outside now: broad beans, hardy peas, some green manures (winter field bean, winter rye)

Sow under cover: winter salad mixes (see article)

Plant outside now: garlic, onions, shallots, rhubarb sets

Do now: clear, dig and manure soils; collect leaves for leafmould; lift and store root crops such as carrots, turnips and beetroot; harvest winter cabbage, swiss chard and spinach; protect celeriac and second-crop potatoes from frost; stake any leggy Brussels sprouts; order seed catalogues for next year