There Are Dozens of Varieties of Salad Greens for You to Explore

When I say the word "salad", what do you picture?

Maybe the plastic box filled with spring mix you buy at the grocery store.

Maybe—if you grew up in the 80s like me—you picture a big bowl of iceberg lettuce. (That was, after all, the only green I had for quite a long period of my childhood.)

Both spring mix and iceberg lettuce come from the same plant family, and I'm guessing that whatever leaves you pictured in your mind also came from this family: the Asteraceae, or Aster, family.

There is a wide variety of salad greens you can grow, but if you're interested in starting your own salad garden, this is probably the most important family to get to know. Let's explore this delicious family a bit so you can get a better idea how the lettuce plants it contains can help you grow the best garden-fresh salad ever.

You may have already guessed, but the those beautiful purple, yellow, or white flowers called Asters are in this family. Other flowers from this family include zinnias, sunflowers, daisies, and dandelions—so many flowers I recommend growing in or near your kitchen garden are right here in the Aster family (and they're edible!).

Aster Family Plant List to Grow in the Salad Garden

Here you'll find many of the typical lettuces we like to eat. Most of these lettuces fall under the sweet lettuce category and represent the smaller leafy greens we'll grow in the garden (compared to cabbage, kale, swiss chard, etc.). Aster lettuce plants including the following:

iceberg lettuce

This is probably the most popular lettuce in the Aster family. It's fun to grow your own iceberg lettuce and explore new ways to eat it that don't involve squirting some ranch dressing on it like we used to do.

radicchio

This is a heading lettuce, like iceberg, but unlike iceberg, I wouldn't group it with sweet lettuces. I love radicchio in what I call a "killed salad", which involves cutting up and roasting the leaves—so delicious! If you don't consider yourself a salad person, roasting your leafy greens can take your vegetable game to a new level.

endive

Endive is another head lettuce with a slight bitter taste and curled leaves that look a bit like kale. You can harvest endive leaves while they're still small and white, or you can let the leaves grow tall.

buttercrunch

You might be familiar with buttercrunch lettuces from the grocery store. My favorite variety is called Marvel of the Four seasons, thanks to its beautiful red-tinged leaves and delicious flavor. Tom Thumb is another bibb lettuce that falls in the buttercrunch group. (Bibb lettuces are smaller heading lettuces.)

romaine

Romaine leaves have long been a staple in Caesar salads. I like to grow a heat-tolerant heirloom variety of romaine called Jericho romaine.

Again, it's fun to explore eating romaine in new ways. You could sauté the leaves or even try using them as lettuce wraps with your favorite filling.

escarole

The name might sound like a made-up kingdom from a Disney movie, but escarole is a delicious leaf lettuce. Escarole leaves hold up well to heat, so try tossing some leaves in a savory soup with beans or even grilling them.

What to Plant in a Salad Garden

Plants from the Aster Family

• iceberg lettuce
• radicchio
• endive
• buttercrunch
• Marvel of the Four Seasons
• Tom Thumb lettuce
• romaine
• escarole
• spring mix

Plants From Other Families

• spinach
• kale
• blue curled scotch kale
• toscano kale
• swiss chard
• purple mustard
• arugula
• mizuna
• napa cabbage

Explore the benefits of growing different leafy greens in our post on the top ten salad greens to grow in the garden.

Salad Garden Tips

how to set up your salad garden

You can grow your own salad garden in a variety of ways based on your available space.

If you have limited space, such as a sunny window sill or small patio, check out our container salad garden ideas. Salad garden planters only need to be six inches deep and about a foot wide to give you harvests for a dinner salad.

If you have a spot where you could install a 4 ft. x 4 ft. raised bed, you could build your own super simple salad box. Here's your step by step to build a salad box like mine.

And for those of you who already have raised beds installed, consider growing lots of Aster plants in your corners and along the edges.

Your salad garden needs to receive at least four hours of sunlight to give you good leaf production.

how to plant your salad garden

the best season to grow your salad garden

Timing is important when it comes to planting your salad garden. Plants in the Aster family enjoy cooler weather. The ideal cool season weather for growing lettuce plants is between 55 and 75 degrees. I've even planted seeds when the temperatures are still in the 30s, and my plants did well, they just took a bit longer to germinate.

Aster plants are great to grow during what we call the shoulder seasons (in other words, right after your final frost date and right before your first frost date of the season).

the proper spacing to plant your salad garden

The lettuces you'll find in the Aster family are short and small, which means you can grow nine plants in just one square foot, making them ideal plants for small spaces. If you don't care about producing a full head, you can pack the plants into an even smaller space with 16 to 24 plants per square foot—just make sure to harvest the outer leaves regularly.

seed sowing in your salad garden

I recommend planting Aster plants from seed. Although you may see lettuces sold as starts at your local nursery or garden center, you likely won't have much luck successfully transplanting them into your salad garden. Even if they survive, you won't see as much growth as from the ones you plant directly by seed into your garden.

Because Asters are small plants that grow in a short time period, there's really no need to buy starter plants (as opposed to a larger plant like kale).

Save yourself tons of money and frustration by sowing Aster lettuces from seed. You'll get more leaves from each and every plant this way.

Many Aster plants are packaged into fun seed mixes so that you can plant a variety in your salad garden. Just like you can buy a box of spring mix at the store, you can plant your own spring mix in your garden.

The seeds in the Aster family look somewhat similar, each one resembling a tiny football.

When you're shopping for seeds, keep in mind that red varieties tend to tolerate heat better, but they're also more difficult to germinate and grow.

Make sure to keep your seeds well watered to ensure germination and growth.

how to harvest from your salad garden

Lettuce plants in the Aster family, as well as the other leafy greens you might grow in the salad garden, can be harvested one of two different ways.

The first way involves harvesting the full plant all at once. For head lettuces, that means harvesting the entire head. For other types of lettuce, that means cutting the leaves near the base of the plant once the leaves have grown to a considerable size. You will typically be able to harvest a full head of lettuce after about 45 to 60 days in the garden.

The second way to harvest is picking leaf by leaf. If you take the older, outer leaves from the plant, you can return later to harvest again, once the plant has had time to recover and grow more leaves from the center. You'll be able to begin harvesting the outer leaves of your lettuce plants about 30 days after planting from seed.

Lettuce plants typically enjoy about a 60- to 90-day lifespan in your salad garden. After about 75 days, you might begin to notice that the plant is developing a strong center stalk, which means it's preparing to go to seed. You'll need to harvest and enjoy the leaves of your Aster plants within two and a half months from planting them—that's why we call them short and small plants (though short and sweet also works).

Once you taste Aster leaves fresh from your salad garden, you'll never be able to go back to the grocery-store variety, I promise.

If you're new to salad gardening, I recommend starting with plants in the Aster family first for easy success. Once you've gotten a feel for planting and tending these lettuce plants, you can branch out into plants in the other families.

The video above and the information here come from just one of the many lessons about growing in the salad garden you can find in our popular course, Salad Garden School. Try out our online garden courses with your first month in Gardenary 365.

You're going to love growing your own garden-fresh salad greens and skipping by those wilting grocery-store bags and boxes for at least six months out of the year!

Cheers from my salad garden to yours!