{"id":10410,"date":"2014-09-04T09:52:38","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T16:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10410"},"modified":"2014-09-04T01:20:14","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T08:20:14","slug":"grow-your-own-mesclun-salad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/grow-your-own-mesclun-salad\/","title":{"rendered":"Grow your Own Mesclun Salad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Mesclun by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/5836622861\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2614\/5836622861_61b0cabfc9.jpg\" alt=\"Mesclun\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3><strong>What is Mesclun<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Mesclun is a mixed salad of young green leaves.<\/li>\n<li>The idea is to create a salad with a good balance of strong and mild flavoured greens.<\/li>\n<li>Often Mesclun contains a mixture of leaves from lettuce, endive, chicory, frisee, spinach, sorrel, swiss chard, mustard, arugula, radicchio and or chervil.<\/li>\n<li>Mesclun is best when harvested as tender young leaves.<\/li>\n<li>For extra flavor some people add herbs like thyme and oregano to the mix.<\/li>\n<li>I think 4 different leaves are enough to make a good Mesclun with no one flavour or texture dominating the others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>How to Grow Mesclun<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Grow from seed and cut the leaves as you need them. Many will work as <a href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/vegetables-herbs\/growing-microleaves\/\">cut and come again <\/a>micro salad leaves.<\/li>\n<li>Salad leaves are mostly water and so you need a soil that is open but water retentive. I have found miracle grow compost has worked well this year.<\/li>\n<li>Water regularly but remember soggy leaves will not be appetising.<\/li>\n<li>I grow in containers and grow bags to leave open ground for more robust crops.<\/li>\n<li>Seeds are ready to crop from 30-40 days as sweet young leaves.<\/li>\n<li>Sow at 2 weekly intervals for regular supplies. Germination is best in cool spring and autumn temperatures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>How to Harvest Mesclun<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>When leaves are at least 4\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tall you can start cutting.<\/li>\n<li>Collect mixed leaves in a basket or bowl and snip with a pair of scissors.<\/li>\n<li>Gently hold a clump of leaves with one hand while cutting with the other. Leave 1\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201c2\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of leafy crowns on the plants so they can regrow for another harvest.<\/li>\n<li>You should get 2 or 3 crops from each plant.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Gardeners Tips and Comments<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Aim for a mix of sweet and stronger leaves.<\/li>\n<li>A mix with yellow and red leaves as well as green can look attractive and we eat with our eyes first.<\/li>\n<li>Mesclun may have originated in France but good gardeners can improve on French attempts at a salad.<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"Chicory Rosa Detreviso by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/5836617159\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3320\/5836617159_5908d0a972.jpg\" alt=\"Chicory Rosa Detreviso\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mix up your salad leaves into a Mesclun by growing various lettuce and leaves<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,18],"tags":[206],"class_list":["post-10410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flowers","category-vegetables-herbs","tag-edible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}