Grow heat-loving greens for summer salads

Question: Our spring vegetable garden is filled with lettuce, arugula, spinach and many other salad greens, but by the time summer rolls around, they always go to seed and leave us without salads for the rest of the season. Can you recommend some edible salad greens we can grow in the summer?

Answer: While nothing beats the spring crunch of homegrown lettuce, there are some great options for heat-loving greens, too. They are more unusual, but they’re super tasty and, most importantly, these varieties thrive in the warm weather of summer. Heat- loving greens such as purslane, Malabar spinach, orach and New Zealand spinach perform quite well in summer’s heat, continuing to fill you plate with healthy greens all season long.

Here are a few of my favorite summer greens.

Orach: This spinach-like green is also known as mountain spinach and is prized for its unique and colorful foliage. Ranging from pink and green to deep purple, the leaves of orach are among the most beautiful in the vegetable garden. Orach can be grown as both a cool-season and a warm-season crop as flowering does not change its flavor.

The iridescent color of “Magenta Magic” orach is ready to harvest in just 30 days, though the leaves can be harvested for months.

Orach is also delicious in salads, cooked in any recipe that calls for spinach or sautéed in olive oil with a bit of garlic and sea salt. Cooked orach tastes nutty and rich. Plants reach 4 to 5 feet in height and the leaves contain three times as much vitamin C as spinach.

New Zealand spinach: Another hot weather lover, New Zealand spinach was brought from New Zealand to Europe in the 1770s. Reaching 2 feet in height, this perennial herb is often grown as an annual as it is not hardy, except in the extreme south.

Each arrow-shaped leaf is chock full of vitamin C and a spinach-like taste that’s terrific both fresh and cooked. Both individual leaves and whole young shoots can be harvested. Allowing the plant to drop seed means a return of this crop the following season.

Purslane: Though many gardeners consider purslane to be a weed, culinary varieties bring a powerful flavor punch to the salad bowl. A warm weather specialty green, purslane’s succulent foliage is lemony and tangy. The crisp texture gives a bite to salads and sandwiches. Purslane will not tolerate frosts.

High in Omega 3 fatty acids, cultivated forms can reach 18 inches in height with equal spread. Continual harvests are made by removing stems but allowing the root system to stay intact and sprout another crop.

Malabar spinach: This beautiful vining crop is a show stopper in the summer garden. Malabar spinach loves hot weather and matures in a mere 65 days. The red stems produce thick, deep green leaves that are 3 inches long and 2 inches wide. Leaves are used in stir fries, steamed or in soups and stews. They are also delicious when tossed fresh into salads.

Nearly all heat-loving greens, including all of the varieties featured above, prefer to be directly sown into the garden as seeds. Form mini rows or scatter the seed evenly over the surface of the soil as soon as the threat of frost has passed. Then cover and tamp the seed lightly to ensure good soil to seed contact, and keep the garden bed moist until the seeds germinate.

Greens are most productive when planted in rich soil, amended with organic matter such as aged animal manure, compost or leaf mold. Select a sunny location for best production and maintain an average soil pH between 6.5 and 7.0.

Most greens, including heat-tolerant varieties, perform best when regularly harvested. Simply use a sharp pair of shears to snip off the foliage. Entire plants can be harvested or you can harvest only a few leaves as needed in the kitchen.