Summer salads

Can’t get healthier!

TEXT Stephen Smith

When you’re making a salad this summer, think beyond lettuce for the greens and your body will thank you.

Summer is salad time, be it a simple French salad or one of those fancy creations that our managing editor and resident culinary genius, Wendy, whips up seemingly effortlessly. The base of a salad is often a leafy green, and in SA this is usually lettuce, but there are so many tasty and healthy leafy options available these days. Here are our top 5 to grow and eat in your salads this summer:

1Cress While you can buy watercress at some grocery shops, it is actually a NEMBA category 2 invasive alien, which means that you need a permit to grow it. There is an alternative though, in the form of garden cress. Garden cress can be grown from seed as a microgreen or as a mature herb. It has a similar flavour to watercress with peppery notes and a mustardy zing, but to a more subtle degree.

In terms of health benefits, it’s amazing what a tiny little herb can offer: it boosts the circulatory system, is high in vitamin C and contains all sorts of minerals that aid our general health. Add it to salads, stir-fries, soups or sandwiches. The spouts are also delicious and healthy.

While watercress needs to grow in water or boggy ground, garden cress can be grown in moist, compost-rich ground in sun or even part shade. It is easy to grow from seed and will also self-seed readily (without taking over the world!).

Johan’s tips on growing kale

This month Johan from Starke Ayres gives us some good tips on growing kale:

Kale is packed with fibre, iron and calcium, as well as vitamins K, A and C. Plus, your favourite salads just aren’t the same without it. Yup, kale is pretty amazing – and a great way to get more of it is by growing your own.

Sowing kale seeds

• Sow seeds directly into prepared beds to get to maturity in 55 - 75 days. Plant more seeds or transplants every 2 - 3 weeks for a long, continuous harvest. • If you’re planting during the cool season, do so where your crop will get full sun. If you’re growing during warmer temperatures, they do better in partial shade. • You can also sow in trays using palm peat, which will speed up the germination process. • Kale is buddy-buddy with beets, celery, cucumbers, herbs, onions, spinach, chard and potatoes. It isn’t happy growing next to beans, strawberries or tomatoes. • Keep soil moist to encourage consistent growth. Dress your soil with compost every 6 - 8 weeks. A seaweed emulsion, like Sea Secret from the Starke Ayres Garden Care range, can help boost growth when used lightly throughout the entire season.

Harvesting kale

It’s time to harvest when the leaves are about the size of your hand. Pick them one by one, starting with the lowest, outermost leaves and working toward the centre. Always leave a few of the small central leaves behind to encourage more growth. In most cases, you’ll be able to harvest from the same plant again in 5 - 7 days.

For more info visit www. starkeayres.co.za

Kale

2Kale isn’t exactly a secret – since it became popular in California health market it has blown up all over the world, a byword for eating healthy. It can be crisped, fried, steamed, boiled, roasted or even eaten raw, in salads. Choose the younger leaves for salads and tear them up while making the salad, and think about using a couple of different varieties for aesthetic and flavour reasons – there are red, green, purple, frilly and plain ones.

If you really don’t like kale but want the health benefits, why not grow your own kale microgreens? This is a great way to eat kale because the pale green microgreens have a more delicate flavour than the mature leaves but have the same high nutrient content. Just grow microgreens, snip them off and scatter them over your favourite salad, soup or other meal as a power-packed garnish. They are also a great addition to any smoothie, and you can even add them to a toasted cheese sarmie to alleviate some of that guilt…

Kale is fast growing and easy to grow, with fewer pest problems than other members of the brassica family. It grows in full sun and needs regular watering and rich soil. Grow it from seed or seedling, and pick the bottom leaves first, leaving a few on the top to keep the plant going, which it will do all year. That said, it tastes better during the colder months and can get bitter during summer.

3Rocket or arugula can be a wonderful thing when used correctly. The tangy, peppery leaves are full of flavour (some say too full of flavour!), and they can overpower other flavours, but balance them in a salad and they elevate it to something special.

As well as adding the leaves and flowers to salads, you can stir-fry them, sauté them, steam them or serve them with white sauce as you would spinach. A lovely Italian dish is rocket leaves sautéed in olive oil and served with pasta and Parmesan.

Rich in minerals and a range of vitamins, rocket is a worthy addition to any diet, especially as it is so easy to grow! Rocket is very easy to grow from seed or seedling and is semiannual, self-seeding in your garden year after year. It needs fairly rich soil with some compost, full sun and moderate amounts of water.

Romaine lettuce

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If you’re a lettuce fan, try to eat the healthiest lettuce variety you can find, which is normally Romaine. Yes, butter lettuce is crisp and crunchy, but it has very little flavour and therefore nutritional value. The old adage is true – the more bitter, the more nutrient-dense. Romaine, which is an upright, dark green lettuce, has more minerals and vitamins that just about all other lettuces, and, sad to say, the popular iceberg is at the bottom of the healthy pile. (Iceberg is low in calories, though, and any fresh green is better than none!)

Romaine is so good in a salad or on a sandwich, or as the ‘wrap’ around other delicious ingredients. It is also great in a smoothie.

Because lettuce is so versatile, it’s well worth growing your own in successive crops. Grow lettuce in the cooler seasons, with lots of water and nutrients in good, well-draining soil, and in full sun to semi-shade. You can grow them from seed or seedling.

Swiss Chard

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Something that you can grow all-year round, and harvest for most of this time, is Swiss chard, which we call spinach. It’s actually more closely related to beets than spinach. While most of us cook it and watch in wonder as it reduces from a full pot to a few spoons full, it can be wonderful in a salad. My mom makes one with Swiss chard, feta and bacon, and it is one of the first things to disappear at a braai. The baby leaves are nicer to eat fresh (including the cut-up stems), while they can also be stir-fried, sauteed and cooked in a variety of other ways.

Swiss chard is low in calories but includes phytonutrients, vitamins A, C and K, and even omega 3 as well as other antioxidants.

It should be grown in enriched soil that drains well, in full sun. It is a heavy feeder, so add some slow-release fertiliser when you plant it and also feed every few weeks with a soluble fertiliser. It can be planted or seed sown almost all year round, except for the depths of winter.