Why Little and Often Beats One Big Sowing

A single row of lettuce sown in May is a lovely thing for about ten days in July. Then you have a glut, the leaves turn bitter or bolt, and you are back to buying bagged salad from the supermarket. Succession sowing solves this by spreading your sowings across the season rather than gambling everything on one date.

The principle is simple: instead of one large sowing, you sow a small batch every two to three weeks. Each batch matures, sits at its peak for a short window, and is harvested just as the next one comes on stream. For a household of two to four people, a 60cm row or a couple of seed trays per sowing is usually plenty. It takes ten minutes every fortnight and gives you fresh leaves from April right through to November.

Choosing Varieties That Earn Their Space

Not all salad crops behave the same way, and picking the right ones makes succession sowing far more forgiving.

• Loose-leaf lettuce such as 'Salad Bowl' and 'Lollo Rossa' are the workhorses of cut-and-come-again growing. You harvest outer leaves and the plant keeps producing for weeks.
• Hearting lettuce like 'Little Gem' or 'Webb's Wonderful' need spacing and a little patience, but they give you proper crunchy hearts.
• Rocket is fast — often ready in three to four weeks — but bolts quickly in heat. Wild rocket is slower to bolt and more strongly flavoured than salad rocket.
• Spinach for baby leaves: 'Medania' and 'Barese' are reliable, while perpetual spinach is technically a beet but crops for months with far less bolting.
• Extras worth slipping in: mizuna, pak choi, mustard 'Red Giant', chard and corn salad. Corn salad sown in late summer will stand through winter.

The Sowing Calendar

From late March to mid-August, aim to sow a small batch of leaves every fortnight. Earlier and later in the year, stretch that to every three or four weeks and use protection.

• March–April: sow under cloches, in a cold frame or on a bright windowsill. Soil is still cold, so germination is slow.
• May–July: sow directly outdoors, but choose shadier spots for lettuce and rocket as heat triggers bolting.
• August–September: sow again for autumn and winter picking. These later sowings are often the most useful of the year.
• October–February: sow corn salad, winter lettuce such as 'Winter Density' and hardy mustards under cover.

Lettuce seed germinates poorly above about 20°C and turns dormant, so a July sowing in full sun can fail entirely. Sow in the evening, water well, and shade the ground with fleece or a sheet of cardboard until seedlings appear.

Sowing Technique and Spacing

For baby leaves, you do not need neat rows. Prepare a patch of weed-free soil, fork it to a fine tilth, and scatter seed thinly across a band 10cm wide. Rake lightly, firm with the back of the rake, and water with a fine rose. Thin to roughly 2–3cm apart once the seedlings are up — crowding is the main cause of weak, leggy leaves and damping off.

If you are growing hearts, sow into modules instead and plant out at 25–30cm spacing. This avoids the fiddly thinning and lets you slide a batch into gaps as other crops finish. Rocket and spinach are best direct-sown for baby leaves, but both transplant acceptably if moved young.

Keep a few modules going on a windowsill or in a cold frame as a backup. If slugs or a dry spell wipe out a direct sowing, you have replacements ready to plant rather than losing three weeks.

Watering, Feeding and Pest Watch

Salad leaves are mostly water, and dry soil makes them tough, bitter and quick to bolt. Water thoroughly once or twice a week rather than little and often, and always water in the morning so foliage dries before evening. A mulch of garden compost or grass clippings conserves moisture and keeps leaves clean of splashed soil.

You rarely need much feed. A fortnightly dilute liquid feed is enough for cut-and-come-again crops that are being harvested hard; too much nitrogen gives soft, sappy growth that aphids adore.

The main adversaries are slugs, aphids and flea beetle. Slug pellets based on ferric phosphate, night patrols with a torch, and beer traps all help. Flea beetle riddles rocket and mizuna with small holes in dry weather — keep the soil damp and cover with fine insect mesh. Aphids on indoor or sheltered lettuce can be washed off with a firm jet of water.

Harvesting for a Long Season

Cut-and-come-again harvesting is what makes this system work. With scissors, take the outer leaves of lettuce and spinach, or shear rocket and mustard back to about 3cm above soil level. The plants regrow within two to three weeks. Never strip a plant bare; leave the growing centre intact.

Cut in the cool of the morning, rinse in cold water, and dry in a tea towel or salad spinner. Leaves keep for several days in a lidded box lined with kitchen paper in the fridge.

Sow with the seasons, keep each batch small, and you will have a bowl of leaves worth eating from your own plot almost every day of the year.