For the salad bowl ...

Sat down yetserday and thought about what I might plant or sow for the salad bowl. I came up with some lists. Any additions would be more than welcome.

Leaves
cabbage, chicory, endive, lettuce, mustard greens, purslane, pak choy, silverbeet, spinach, tatsoi

Herbs, flowers and flavourings
alexanders (for the peppery seeds), basil, borage, calendula, chervil, coriander, nasturtium, parsley, spring onions, sorrel, violet

Roots and bulbs
carrot, onion, radish

Very comprehensive list! Great salad bowl. Nothing really to add. Maybe just Wild Rocket (Italian Arugula)? I have seeds, if you'd like some. It has become a hardy perennial in my garden. Can stand long periods without watering in summer. Doesn't mind the frost. Is a tidy, ground-hugging plant. And produces and produces.....

I'm keen on Radicchio - the deep red colour is great with shredded cabbage and darker green leaves, to add a slightly 'bitter' taste. I use the outer leaves for salad and the heart for braising in olive oil. It adds to any green salad both visually and flavour-wise

This is a favourite

2 small radicchio, shredded no core
1 cup shredded green cabbage
1 cup Mizuna leaves or any other mustard green
handful green grapes
2 mandarin or 1 large orange, in segments

Dress with mix of
olive oil
red wine vinegar
sugar to taste
1/2 teaspoon poppy seed
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Rocket, how could I forget! I haven't grown the wild rocket before but intend to this year. Thanks for the offer of seeds but I was given some by someone here. And thanks for the reminder about radicchio, a red chicory by the way, but I had forgotten about it.
How about more flowers. I've heard that campanula flowers are tasty in salads. Any others?

Beetroot and turnip greens in moderation. Remember the reds for antioxidants. Small turnips can be used like radish in salads.
Beetroot salad with feta cheese, and onion - yummo!
Potatoes for potato salad - consider a tyre stack or circle of wire lined with paper to cut out the light, fill with compost and straw as the spuds come through.
Garlic - use the greens. Garlic chives, ordinary chives, shallots,
A couple of cherry tomatoes planted among the salad greens, so you can grab a few as you harvest the garden.
Lolo Houbein has some great ideas and layouts for mixed salad gardens in her book "One Magic Square" which I haven't shut up about since I bought it 2 weeks ago.
Cheers, Jan

Borage flowers are superb in a cucumber salad. Also sprinkled with castor sugar and added last minute to a glass of bubbly. Rosemary flowers add a little something. So do rose petals.

I'm keen to try your raddiccio salad blossom. Sounds yum. While i don't look forward to summer, I do look forward to salads on hot days. Salads in abowl that you can come back to later for a crunchy munch. Easy throw together quickly salads, with a light grill - a quick meal after a late evening of gardening, when it's just too hot to garden in the heat of the day.

It's almost like a slaw type of salad - kids love it because of the fruit. We serve it at barbecues and there's rarely left overs, whereas your coleslaw - cabbage carrot type doesn't thrill. It gets the red leaves into them too.

Ray see if you can get the library to get you "The Organic Salad Garden" by Joy Larcom. It's an interesting read, most salads though are using imagination. Edible flowers include:
Chives flowers, Johnny Jump ups, Pansies, Angelica, Saffron, Bee Balm( Bergamot), Carnations, Chamomile, Dandelions, Clover, Chrysanthemums, Lavender, Lilac ( lovely taste), Jasmine, Nasturtiums, Pumpkin and Zucchini flowers, Sunflower petals, Violets. I'll look in my medieval herbals because it was common to eat flowers for medicinal purposes. My Mum always put Pot Marigold ( the big English ones) in a stew to 'kill the fat'. She also used it to colour butter and I used to give it to my chooks.

Interesting thread.

Great sugestions everyone. I hadn't thought of using baby turnips raw. I'll give anything a go once! Is the beetroot in the beetroot and fetta salad cooked first? Roasted maybe? Yummmmm. And a cherry tomato or two in the salad garden. Excellent idea. Must look out for both those books, Lolo Houbein and Joy Larcom. I'll be in the library soon looking for a refill so I'll check. Probably won't have Lolo's book if it's only recent. Might have to pass by The Reader's Companion, the town's best bookshop (unashamed plug there). I'm going to have to grow radicchio now just to try that salad Blossom!

Raymondo - the beetroot is cooked. Roasted would be nice! I bought some at Greensborough plaza, but I think home made would be nicer. It also had walnuts in it. You could improvise. I'm thinking pine nuts :-)
Had a small amount of regular Mayo. Homemade would be good. I'm lazy and use Thomy. It was a lot of beetroot but I couldn't stop myself eating it :-)
I will try the raddiccio salad on my SIL who hates to cook, but loves coleslaw. She also hates to garden but wants acreage ..... Uhuh? Like my brother would get out and garden once he's retired? He hasn't yet, so why start now? It would be nice if he got up some enthusiasm and started growing his own veg. Good for their pockets. I might start hinting :-)
Cheers, Jan

If petrol gets to $8/L as per the CSIRO report, the price of food in the supermarkets will encourage lots of people to take up growing at least some of their own, maybe even your brother and my sister!.

Raymondo wrote:If petrol gets to $8/L as per the CSIRO report, the price of food in the supermarkets will encourage lots of people to take up growing at least some of their own, maybe even your brother and my sister!.

That thought keeps me keen. Eating what I've grown, such a satisfying experience.

I love snow peas in a a salad, and dandelion leaves, just a few. I've had just about enough stews and soups, long for a run of salads, with potato, rice or pasta, and a slab of protein.

Sprouts!

I use them alot in salads, all sorts. I looooove mung beens in a salad. I'm too lazy so I buy them. I really should get my act together I'm sure they're 10 times better than the store bought ones.

Is it too late there for Swiss chard - use instead of celery for instance.

I'm looking forward to summer salads - all the different herbs and vinegars, shallots and cheeses - you can make it up as you go.

Roast beetroot salad - yum