Carrying on with the winter salad plants, we have three very prolific weed types that are so easy to grow. A must for the salad bowl!
Reichardia picroides. This plant looks somewhat similar to a dandelion but wait until you taste the leaves! Instead of the bitterness of a dandelion the leaves have a very acceptable flavour with a slight sweetness. Some say it is far better than lettuce and so much easier to grow. It is one of the few plants where we like the leaves but the slugs don't. Even when the plants are flowering the leaves maintain their delicious flavour.
Rumex acetosa. Sorrel is a favourite salad plant. The leaves have a delicious lemon flavour, though they should not be eaten in quantity since they contain oxalic acid. There appears to be a very superior cultivar from Poland that virtually never flowers and provides large tasty leaves all the year round. Plants are about 40cm tall and spread slowly.
Rumex alpinus. Unlike other docks, the leaves of the alpine dock make a fairly acceptable addition to winter salads (and a delicious spinach substitute). The plant stays green all winter if the weather is mild, otherwise it will die down but reappear in February. The leaves can become more bitter in the summer but are still acceptable cooked. A very vigorous plant, it grows about 60cm tall and wide.
Horticultural.
