The salad days of Winter
Stopping to smell the flowers
Arlene Marturano
Arlene Marturano is a master gardener,

writer, and educator. As an advocate of gardening as a tool for learning, she helped develop the Carolina Children's Garden at the Sandhill Research and Education Center. She is an education consultant with T.E.A.C.H. marturano@yahoo.com

When Shakespeare coined the phrase salad days in Anthony and Cleopatra, he was referring to a time of youth and innocence. Modern parlance uses the phrase to mean the prime or peak of one's life regardless of age. Fall and winter are the best times to grow salad greens in the Midlands. There are fewer pests, lower humidity, and cooler temperatures.

The high vitamin and mineral content of Asian greens makes them attractive for adding nutrients in a low calorie context.

Each green is unique in flavor and texture. Mizuna is a pointy- lobed feathery, leafy green with a mild sweet mustard taste.

Lamb's lettuce, corn salad and mache, is a rosette of round leaves high in B- vitamins, Vitamin C, and iron. Lamb's lettuce is considered a winter tonic for fatigue and stress.

Tatsoi grows a rosette of dark green spoon- shaped leaves rich in calcium, Vitamins A and C, and cancer- fighting folate.

Komatsuna is a Japanese mustard spinach with large oval tender green leaves and is another calcium- rich green. Tendergreen is a mild mustard green with long narrow leaves.

Razzle dazzle spinach is an Oriental fast growing arrow- leafed spinach loving cooler weather.

Arugula is a spicy little leaf from the Mediterranean, also in the mustard family, often mixed with milder greens to balance the bite.

Garden sorrel is a European perennial herb with lemon flavored leaves used in salads, soups, and baked fish. The vitamin C content is so high it has been used to treat scurvy.

Swiss chard, a member of the beet family, is one of the easiest and most colorful of winter garden vegetables. Young chard leaves can be added to salads, but larger leaves are cooked like spinach. This superfood is extremely high in Vitamin K.

Root vegetables do well here in winter, especially carrots. Touchon, a French carrot, is used in salads and as a juicing carrot.

Winter radishes like Daikon grow slower but larger than spring radishes so fewer seeds need to be sown. The young greens are also edible.

Beets can be sown in early fall and the greens harvested throughout the winter. By spring, the root will be ready to harvest.

Growing the greens in salad bowl planters can spark attention to fresh snacks.

One advantage of growing your own salad greens is the increased vitamin content from eating produce immediately after harvest. Store bought produce has often traveled far and for long periods of time, which greatly reduces nutrient levels.

Another advantage of growing salad greens is reducing the chances of recall due to contamination by e- coli, salmonella, and other pathogens reported in fresh produce.

Early November is not too late to start salad days of winter from seed or bedding plants.