Salad mixtures

[GIULIA]

Don't know about you but I've tried quite a few of these salad-seed mixtures so far but it seems to me that there's very often one or two bully-boy varieties in the pack that don't give a few of the more interesting seeds in the mixture much of a chance. Is there some knack to getting all the varieties to keep up? I wonder if its simply that some types germinate first and squeeze out the later ones. Perhaps the salad mixture concept is essentially flawed? I've got something called 'niche salad' growing merrily in a tray in my cold greenhouse at the moment but its clear the Red Russian Kale is top dog and my salad snippings have been very Kaley so far. Shall I keep snipping and hope that other things get a smell in further down the line? I want to taste the purslane and the streaky mustard

[richard p]

just guessing , but would sowing very thinly allow the more timid plants room to grow?

[Chantal]

You could just sacrifice some of the Russian kale to allow the others to grow.

[Monika]

I would have thought that any brassicas in a salad mixture would always be the 'bullies' because they grow so quickly. Puling them out individually is probably the only solution.
If you fancy a good mixture in the future, try DT Browns lettuce Gourmet Mixed and Thompson and Morgan Mixed lettuce leaves. Both only contain different sorts of lettuce but they do grow well again after the first cut.
This year I am trying Parella green and Parella red from Suffolk Herbs for the first time, but as they are only just germinating, I don't know how they will turn out.