Wanton destruction 1

On Tuesday I had five very excitable friends over and likened their glee to kids in a sweet shop (see My seeds are for sharing).

Now even those without parental knowledge are aware what happens when one sweet too many (or should that be one sweet) passes the lips to trigger what can only be described as instant turbo fuel injection.

In the interest of sharing the harvesting pleasure I gifted the delicate task of picking salad leaves to one of my friends.

When said friend returned with a bunch of leaves, roots attached in hand I must admit i feared for my lettuce.

Then yesterday morning I stepped out to a heartbreaking scene:

Now, if you've not yet grown your own salad you may be wondering what all the cries of pain are about. To you this may seem like a few wilted and broken leaves among a healthy bed. To me Colonel Hathi and his pachyderm have just charged through.

You see, once you start growing something weird and quite frankly disturbing happens. Every leaf matters.

If you try and wash the leaves in a sieve and one makes a suicidal leap into the sink you become a Samaritan and thrust out a hand to catch it.

So the next time I ask someone to pick my salad, there will be instructions.

Salad leaves - rabbit food?

When was the last time you ate a salad leaf and concentrated on the taste?

Granted, there are finer things to chew over but at the cost of up to £2 a bag, I'd expect every damn leaf in that bag to make my taste buds crack open the beer and celebrate.

To be honest, most salad leaves taste a bit crap on their own. They need friends. A slick bit of oil, a sharp flavour or two and then they may take their place at the table. Except rocket. The daddy of salad leaves which can turn up to dinner naked and wow the crowd.

If you don't grow anything, then do your bit to end the scandal that is rip off salad bags and start with a packet of rocket seeds and a container of compost. Even a small one should work I reckon.

Salad leaves after a few weeks

The thing I realised, in one of those light bulb moments staring at the seed packets in the garden centre, is that you can start to create your own salads leaf by leaf (yes, this might appear even more pointless than spending more than 2 seconds chewing but bear with me).

Never again do you have to pick out the watercress from your watercress, spinach and rocket bag. Or the herbs from herb salad pack you picked up by accident because someone else left it in the wrong place.

I've planted rhubarb chard and rocket, and last year had mustard leaf. I've got a mixed salad container which gives me the bulk - the throne for the rocket if you like. I have some beetroot in the ground, and the leaves are apparently also tasty. I even have pea shoots, although I'm actually after the peas. But you can actually buy the shoots! I mean, that's not even the whole plant. The veg equivalent of buying a decent semi sticking in an extra door and bathroom and selling it off as two exclusive studio flats for twice the price.

I'm going to try rocket in a small pot indoors to see if it works, and I'll post the results on here in a month or so.