Beyond tossed salad - using edible plant and flowers sources for salads - includes list of nursery sources

Flower & Garden Magazine, Feb-March, 1994 by Kathy Mallon

IT ARRIVED ONE DAY IN A BIG plastic bag, without as much as a label -- just a one-word note from a fellow gardener: "Enjoy." The bag was filled with mesclun, a mixture of lettuce, salad greens and herbal garnish. The blend had weathered a two-day journey from California to Rhode Island inside a friend's suitcase. unrefrigerated, yet still crisp and colorful.

Our first meal of mesclun was a culinary adventure. As we gingerly dug in, my husband and I analyzed every bite, trying to decipher and describe the essence of each ingredient. We were captivated by the concept and immediately smitten with this twist on the basic salad garden. We've been growing mesclun in our garden ever since.

Mesclun is a French term that connotes a colorful mixture of "baby" salad greens. Mesclun's ingredients often include several varieties of lettuce and chicory, along with more unusual greens like mizuna, arugula, radicchio, chervil, endive and cress. Such a blend provides a visually pleasing mixture of color and texture. Herbs and edible flowers serve as both colorful and flavorful accents.

The first year we grew mesclun, we purchased two pre-packaged mixtures, the Mild Mix and the Garnish Mix, from The Cook's Garden, a Vermont-based seed supplier specializing in salad greens. Based on our experience, this way is the best for mesclun beginners. These mixes are "tried and true" blends of greens and herbs that taste good and grow well together. Often they are formulated to produce a succession of germination, which keeps the crops changing while stretching out the harvest.

The germination and maturation of our first patch of mesclun was nearly as exciting as the eating. The Mild Mix contained a number of unusual greens, with mizuna sprouting first, followed by purslane, orach, chervil, mache and claytonia. The Garnish Mix, as the name suggests, contained accent plants, many of which, like the parsley, chives, fennel and shungiku, grew more slowly and lasted all season. We deftly identified most of the greens soon after they sprouted, but some of the more unusual varieties kept us savoring and guessing.

We discovered the pungent flavor of shungiku, an edible chrysanthemum, and mache's mild, nutty overtones. Much to our surprise, the shungiku flowered later in the summer. We tossed the edible blossoms into the mesclun too. All in all, the concoctions of old standbys and newcomers to our garden seemed to thrive together with relative ease. The mesclun was a hit all around.

In our Rhode Island garden, located in Zone 6, we can sow mesclun seed in March, directly into wood-framed raised beds that we cover if a late frost threatens the tender sprouts. When you're new at growing mesclun, it can be a challenge to distinguish the weeds from the greens. Planting in narrow rows makes it easier to spot and cull invaders before they muscle out your mesclun. Since it can be harvested over a four- to six-week period, several successive plantings yield a season-long supply.

By choosing heat-tolerant varieties or by planting the later crops in the shade, we've been able to grow mesclun right through the heat of summer. A commercial grower in our area, however, uses tobacco shade cloth to cut down on the heat and minimize the amount of water the mesclun needs.

Mizuna, a member of the mustard family with dark green, feathery foliage, seems to be fairly heat tolerant. Mache also holds up all summer because, unlike lettuce, it won't turn bitter when it goes to seed. Many catalogs offer heat-tolerant herbs, such as |Slo Bolt Cilantro' and |Brussels Winter Chervil' that we grow in extra quantities to add to our mesclun mixes. Cilantro's acquired taste will give your mesclun a characteristic pungent flavor, but it might also make the mixture unpalatable to the uninitiated. Chervil, on the other hand, has a mild licorice flavor that most people seem to enjoy.

Another summer cultivation challenge is keeping enough red in the mesclun mix. Try growing beet greens and red chard. A single planting of each will produce plenty of heat-tolerant reddish greens from spring till frost. An heirloom beet called |MacGregor's Favorite,' well-known for its greens, is a good option. |MacGregor's' seed can be a bit wimpy, however, so plant it thick to get a decent stand. The Swiss scarlet chard |Charlotte' also produces superior greens for the salad bowl.

Mesclun is best harvested with scissors or a sharp knife. Cut the outer foliage of lettuce, leafy greens and beets every few days, leaving the crown in place to keep producing greens for later cutting. With radicchio and endive, harvest the centers. The hearts of these plants will regrow and give you a second harvest.

To crisp up the greens and rinse them off, soak them in a sink full of cold water for 15 to 20 minutes. Once they are thoroughly dried in a salad spinner or by blotting the greens between tea towels, the larger leaves can be torn into bite-sized bits and tossed into a serving bowl or stored in plastic bags for later use.