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zone 4 - winter salad greens?????

Posted by flowersnhens Maine 4 (My Page) on
Tue, Nov 10, 09 at 18:44

I am attempting to grow salad greens through the winter, like Salad bowl, buttercrunch, kale, bok choy, and mesclun mix. I have had pretty good luck so far. I have some that are up and have gone through mid 20 degree weather (in the greenhouse, unheated) and look great. I just seeded some more today and will continue to seed every 2 weeks.

ANYONE ELSE doing this?????? I would love to hear what you are growing and how its doing???


Follow-Up Postings:

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RE: zone 4 - winter salad greens?????

Yes We are doing that in NH but in a heated greenhouse and also in a hydroponic system.


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RE: zone 4 - winter salad greens?????

Oh yes, we are enjoying our greens in our unheated greenhouse here in Montana. Last year was our first winter and we had nice greens until we got a very cold snap of double digits below zero for several days. Sadly, we had gorgeous heads of mature buttercrunch lettuce that I thought I could sustain underneath several layers of blankets. Nope, they all froze solid and in hindsight I should have harvested them.

We left the greenhouse alone for about 7 weeks (mid-Dec until early-mid Feb) at which point the spinach sprouted up again. From then on I seeded spinach, bok choi and lettuces which all did well except for the aphids all over them.

This fall we have nice crops of lettuces, a mesclun blend, corn salad, mizuna and spinach. They are growing very well so far. Last year I grew them in the ground beds, but this year I am growing them in various types of containers, including hanging baskets, to learn what works best.

I start the seeds in the house where it is consistently warm, then bring them to the GH once they've sprouted. I have some heat mats if I want to speed things up. I can move the containers around to the warm spots if I feel so inclined and theoretically I could bring them in the house if a serious cold snap arrived. But so far that has not been necessary.

I think my favorite green is buttercrunch, which is so tender and sweet, and seems less affected by aphids. The mesclun blend we've got growing now is a close second because it's got just the right balance of tangy and sweet. The seeds were from Lowe's, nothing fancy.

One of our best successes from last year was the "pesto factory." This is a plain ol' plastic windowbox that I planted with basil. I lovingly moved the windowbox to the warmest parts of the GH (up high during the day, on the floor under a blanket at night) and lavished it with lots of TLC. We were rewarded with out first pesto dinner in mid-May, and weekly harvests thereafter. By early summer our outdoor basil crop had kicked in, so I gave the pesto factory to a friend who continued to eat from it all summer long.


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RE: zone 4 - winter salad greens?????

Karin: What did you do about the aphids? I have sprayed them off when watering and it helped alittle. I don't want to spray them, any tricks?

I am experimenting with a lettuce table/barrel. I have access to tons of these barrels (they were used to carry soybean oil for hog feed, no chemicals) an I planted lettuce in them on October 5th. We harvested some last week and this week and the lettuce was wonderful. The spinach was ok, but the lettuce was better. I am thinking about making up a bunch more for next spring. I want to line them up in the aisles in my high tunnels, then I can effectively use the space. When I am done with them, move them outside and bring them back in in the fall. Anyone have any experience with lettuce tables?

Experimental  lettuce table

Here is the spinach I planted on the 5th of October. We have ate two meals from it. It does look alittle thin, but it will come back. The barrel is the spinach one.

Spinach, Planted 10/5


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RE: zone 4 - winter salad greens?????

jr slick, that is one slick setup with the lettuce barrels, I love that! It looks healthy too. What kind of lettuce is it?

I still haven't figured out how to foil the aphids, but I use soap spray on the greens, which helps at least temporarily. So far I'm having many fewer aphids in plants that are planted in containers rather than in the ground, so that might be a promising approach. Stay tuned.


 
 

 

 


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