A word first, what sheds light on the motivation why we as allotment gardeners should strive to grow as diverse a range of fresh garden salads as possible, especially in winter.
If you sow and plant at the right time, you can also harvest lettuce in winter
- February 28, 2008: Residues in lettuce: No lettuce without nitrate;
- May 28, 2013: Packaged salads: Every second salad with too many sprouts;
- March 28, 2022: chicory, lamb's lettuce & rocket in the test: how many harmful substances are in it?
These were not headlines from the newspaper with the capital "B" at the beginning, but the headlines of articles in the magazine "test" from the last few years. The article from March 2022 read: "Spring is here, but lamb's lettuce and arugula are often still growing under glass or foil. We found a lot of nitrate in their leaves. In the test: 28 salads that are not ready to cook, including six organic products - ten chicory, nine lamb's lettuce and nine rocket. As far as pollution is concerned, two salads are very good, nine are just enough. We did not find any harmful residues of pesticides or chlorate. Pleasingly low in pollutants: chicory.” (Quote online portal Stiftung Warentest)
Vegetables also thrive in winter
It even grows almost by itself and without any expensive equipment, either in the garden or even in the pot, so that we don't have to do without broccoli, coriander, kale or the particularly popular Asian salads even when it's freezing cold. But which species actually belong to the variety of winter vegetables in our latitudes? To do this, we took a look around at our Austrian neighbors. Wolfgang Palme from the Higher Federal Education and Research Institute in Vienna has given some suggestions for the variety of varieties in his latest book "Harvest fresh vegetables in winter":
| variety | origin | description |
|---|---|---|
| ‘Neusiedler Yellow Winter’ | Austrosaat | East Austrian traditional variety with light, tender leaves |
| 'Winter King' | Austrosaat | Traditional variety with light-colored leaves and a slight reddish marking, relatively large heads |
| 'Winter Butterhead' | Same Maier, Nebelung Kiepenkerl | Traditional variety with yellowish leaves, firm heads |
| 'Brown Winter' ('Brune d'hiver') | Rheinau Sativa, Baumaux Seeds | vigorous growth even in winter; good results in our trials; typical brown-red coloring |
| 'Winterhead' | Noah's Ark | loose red-green heads |
| 'Big blonde d'hiver' | Essem'Bio | old variety, vigorous growth, yellow-green color; blistered, wavy leaves |
| 'Merveille des quatre saisons' | Bingenheim seed | intense reddish-brown colour, loose head |
| ‘Zimska Salata’ | Noah's Ark | Croatian winter lettuce, loose heads |
| 'Viennese Forces' | Noah's Ark | Traditional Viennese variety, blistered wavy leaves, robust |
| 'unique' | Austrosaat | Iceberg lettuce, traditional variety, reddish edge |
Source: "Harvest fresh vegetables in winter" by Wolfgang Palme, published by Löwenzahn Verlag Innsbruck
Especially popular with gourmets, the picking salads
We have already reported on this popular leafy vegetable with its different flavors and cultivated forms in another article. But what about the cultivation of these lettuce, which is outwardly characterized as not having a head, but green, red or yellow and growing in the form of leaves on our beds? Similar to the popular lettuce and romaine lettuce, they can be planted outside in this country until the end of October without hesitation, so that strong roots can develop before the severe frosts. As with the other winter lettuce, it is growth-promoting to cover them with foil, which is not primarily used to protect against frost, but to keep wind and rain away from the sensitive plants.
Other varieties that are ideal for winter cultivation and grow into excellent suppliers of vitamins well into the new year are asparagus lettuce, romaine lettuce, lettuce (down to -10 °C) and the extremely fast-growing multileaf lettuce.