Salad leaves
The easiest thing you can grow — Cut-and-come-again salad is fast, forgiving, and works in a window box as well as an allotment bed. A good place to start.
Why salad leaves
Cut-and-come-again salad leaves are as close to beginner-proof as growing gets. Sow directly into a container or bed, keep moist, and harvest with scissors when the leaves reach around 10cm. The plants regrow and you can cut two or three times before they bolt.
They're also genuinely cheap to grow. A £2 packet of mixed salad seed will produce more leaves than you could buy from a supermarket for £20. And the difference in freshness — picked and eaten within minutes — is real.
What to grow
Loose-leaf lettuce varieties are more forgiving than hearting types — oak leaf, lollo rosso, and cos types all work well. Rocket adds bite but bolts fast in heat; it's best in spring and autumn. Spinach and chard tolerate cooler temperatures and lower light than lettuce.
Avoid icebergs and dense hearting types for cut-and-come-again — they're bred for different harvesting. Mixed 'salad bowl' seed blends are an easy starting point and give variety without having to choose individual varieties.
Succession sowing
The secret to salad all summer is to sow a small amount every two to three weeks rather than a large batch all at once. A single big sowing will give you a glut followed by a gap as everything bolts simultaneously.
A 30cm trough sown every fortnight from March to August will give you fresh leaves almost continuously. It takes minutes to sow and costs almost nothing. Write the sowing date on the trough with a marker — you'll forget otherwise.
Bolting
Most salad leaves bolt in heat or drought — they produce a tall flower stalk, the leaves become bitter, and the plant's focus shifts to setting seed. It's a natural response to stress and you can't stop it indefinitely, only delay it.
Keep plants moist, provide some afternoon shade in midsummer, and harvest regularly to keep the plant in vegetative mode. When a plant bolts, pull it out and sow again. At the end of the season, let one plant run to seed and collect them — free seed for next year.