Claytonia and land cress have not been selected into named varieties. Corn salad is more important commercially and has been bred to produce varieties with attributes like colour and plant size.

You can sow direct or in trays.

Sowing direct is difficult when the soil is often dry and beds are full of vegetables still growing. Therefore raising plants in trays is worthwhile, also for reduced pest damage to seedlings.

• Seeds germinate in about one week.

Sowing time

The absolute best time is early autumn, to avoid early flowering and disease, and for precious harvests in winter months. Below are my best sowing dates for growing outside here, to give you a reference. You can sow a week later, for growing through winter under cover.

• Claytonia – mid-September.
• Corn salad – 5th–15th September, a week earlier in Zone 7, for example.
• Land cress – mid-August for autumn harvests outside, early September for winter cropping.

Sowing method

I suggest one plant per cell, for ease of harvest and larger leaves. Water trays to capacity before sowing.

Sow two or three seeds per cell, or a pinch of tiny Claytonia seeds (later you thin to the strongest).

Cover seeds with almost no compost, then water lightly.

For direct sowing, follow this method.

• Often you need to run water along the bottom of a drill, before dropping in the seeds. In early autumn it’s common that the surface is dry.
• Make drills 22 cm/9 in apart, even a little closer if it’s possible.
• When direct-sown seedlings have two true leaves, thin to the spacings described below.

Transplant size and time

Growth slows by early October so these may be four weeks old before you transplant. Or, if the ground is ready, you can pop them in as small seedlings after two to three weeks. There is no absolute correct size.

Transplant method

It’s rapid to make holes with a wooden dibber, then pop in the small module seedlings. Plant a little deep but not too much so, especially for corn salad which has no long stem.

Spacing

Corn salad never grows large and can be as close as 10 cm/4 in. Claytonia and land cress grow larger, and 22 cm/9 in allows for many healthy green leaves which are easier to pick. The 22 cm/9 in spacing allows a longer root run, which helps plants to grow all winter for many pickings.

Interplant

There are many possibilities, as you see in the photos just below and dotted through this lesson. The principle is to find space between vegetables that will soon finish. During autumn this can mean a lot of possibilities, as long as the pattern of leaf growth on existing vegetables allows sufficient space for new leaves.

Suitable vegetables to transplant between are lettuce, Florence fennel, swede, winter radish and endive.

You almost never need to water any of these plants. However, do give water to transplants and if it’s dry in mid-autumn, it’s worth watering corn salad in particular.

These plants all root shallowly and do not tolerate the surface being dry, so they also benefit from a little water in early spring, if the soil is drying quickly.

How to judge readiness

Claytonia grows up and outward into a mound of leaves on quite long stems, including a few male flowers. Take a first cut before you see more than one or two male flowers, and before too many of the first leaves start to discolour with age.

Corn salad grows a tight and only medium-sized rosette of central leaves, which then stop growing larger because new growth is now on side shoots around the central rosette. First harvest is to cut the centre leaves, once you notice sideshoots developing. Cut low enough to secure the whole rosette of middle leaves, but not too low, so that at least a few sideshoots remain to continue growing.

Land cress also grows sideshoots, so look for outer leaves large enough to twist off before there are too many sideshoots.

How to pick

Claytonia and corn salad need to be cut, while land cress can be cut or picked. Cut as low as you can without damaging the central and smallest leaves. Cutting low is good, to reduce the amount of yellowing stem in the way of subsequent harvests. Just be sure to cut higher than the smallest new leaves, otherwise regrowth may not happen!

When to pick and how often

After cutting across plants, the next harvest will be after four to eight weeks, according to how cold winter is. With corn salad, the new harvest is small sideshoots, nobody’s favourite job in cold conditions, whereas the other two are fantastic for repeat cropping. By early spring, there is a much shorter time interval between harvests, which are larger.

Storing

In the cool of winter, these leaves keep for at least a week, even outdoors, in the garage for example, and preferably in a polythene bag. It is more practical to harvest quite a few in one go, than to keep popping out in winter weather!

Saving seed

The period of cropping continues right up to the flowering stage, in mid-spring. Next, within four weeks, there are viable seeds on Claytonia, around six weeks for corn salad and up to ten weeks for land cress.

Gather flowering stems as soon as you notice some dry seeds on them, which means before too many seeds fall onto the ground. With land cress, twist out whole plants and hang to dry until midsummer.

Slugs and snails

They are prevalent in winter’s moisture, but less active in the cooler conditions. I often find slugs while harvesting leaves of these plants but do not see a lot of damage, because they are not slugs’ favourites.

These are ways to reduce slug numbers:

• Adopt a no dig approach, which allows slug predators such as beetles to maintain or increase their numbers. Ground beetles (Carabidae) can eat a lot of slug eggs and baby slugs.
• No dig results in soil with good aeration, compared to thin layers of damaged and compacted/anaerobic soil after digging. Fermentation can occur in anaerobic conditions and results in alcohol, which attracts slugs.
• Remove and reduce nearby slug habitat.

Rabbits

You can protect susceptible plants using bird netting, However, in winter it’s more efficient to use mesh, for extra weather protection. In my garden, I have not known rabbits to dig under mesh or fleece, but others have experienced this.

Pigeons

These will eat land cress, in cold winter weather above all. Bird netting is a good remedy – support it on hoops so it’s held more than 30 cm/12 in above plants.

Disease

The main one is mildew on corn salad, but only when it is sown too early and therefore growing in dry conditions in early autumn.

• These plants are rustic, can grow in the wild and suffer very few problems.

Clear

Either cut the main stems at ground level, or twist out plants to leave most roots in the soil. It’s good to spread some compost in spring, between finishing the winter salads and transplanting summer vegetables.

A cover or mulch of 2.5 cm/1 in of compost will set your soil up nicely for cropping through the whole year.

Under cover, we add 4 cm/1.5 in, because of the intensity of cropping during every month of the year, with both summer and winter vegetables.

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Endive (Cichorium endivia) is in the chicory family, but grows in a different way to most of what is called chicory (Cichorium intybus). This quote from Wikipedia sums it up:

‘There is considerable confusion between Cichorium endivia and Cichorium intybus.’

I describe chicories in Lesson 12, Course 3A, on growing them for both radicchio and chicons.

• Chicons are sometimes called ‘endives’, but they are not at all like endive salad leaves!
• Endive plants are grown for leafy and bitter green leaves, rarely with heads, and never with tight heads such as radicchios or chicons.

I am describing them here rather than in Lesson 12, to ‘create a little space’ between endive and chicory.

Nonetheless, endive and chicory are closely related and intertwined, in both gardening and cooking.

Endives flower in the spring, so make your first sowings after that time. They do not flower in summer and autumn, except for any premature bolting. Flowers are a pretty blue, like those of chicory.

Harvest period

• Days from seed to first harvest: 40 for leaves to pick, and 75 for large plants to cut

• Best climate is temperate and moist, summers not too hot, say afternoons of 21–33 ° C/70–90 °F, with occasional rain or storms.

Why grow them

For green leaves in autumn, endives are more reliable than lettuce because they suffer less mildew. This relates to late summer through autumn being their main season for new growth. This creates a strong root system to power flowering in spring.

The leaves are bitter and with a firm texture, so they give more body to a bowl of salad leaves than lettuce. Endive leaves store for longer than lettuce leaves, thanks to a higher dry matter content, with proportionately less water.

• Bitterness is now considered beneficial for our bodies, so I feel it’s worth cultivating the taste to enjoy and appreciate endive leaves.
• Frizzy/frisée leaves are very beautiful.

Pattern of growth

Endive are biennial and make most leaf growth in the second half of a year. If you sow in the spring, harvests are small before they rise to flower. For us, this fits well with lettuce, whose season of healthiest leaf growth and highest harvests is in spring and early summer, the opposite to endive.

Through winter outside, endive is hardy but absolutely not prolific. It is almost as prone to rotting in winter as is lettuce. Continual dampness is more of a problem than low temperatures.

Under cover, endive can be productive all winter in mild conditions – in early spring especially. Then, when it flowers in late spring, it is a sight to behold.

Suitable for containers/shade?

Endive grows in the shade and is an excellent plant for containers, thanks to its shallow rooting system and only a small need for space. However, seedlings are prone to slug damage.

If you enjoy the slight bitterness and a firm texture, with more fibre than lettuce, endives are an excellent vegetable for any small space.

There are two main types: scarole, and frizzy or frisée. Scarole have larger and round leaves, while frizzy grows slender leaves with many serrations.

Bubikopf and Diva scaroles are both super vigorous, with large and quite pale leaves in late summer to early autumn, then much smaller new leaves, although still growing, even in November.

En Cornet de Bordeaux scarole has a more pointy habit of upwards growth.

Frenzy frizzy grows fast, with more than ten weeks of decent harvests with tender leaves.

Fine Maraîchère frizzy has finer, thinner stems than Frenzy and crops well over a long period.

Wallone frizzy is a darker green than other frizzy varieties, with fatter stems than Fine Maraîchère.

Aery F1 is the most vigorous frizzy I grow, and it crops well in a polytunnel through winter.

Sow and propagate

Endive seeds are slightly larger than lettuce and germinate rapidly, partly thanks to being sown in summer warmth.

• Seeds germinate in four to six days.

Sowing time

Follow the table above, for picking from July until April. We sow from the 10th of June until early September. The last sowing is for planting under cover in October, and they crop right through until late April, when flower stems become prominent, with few new leaves.

Sowing method

Picking and cutting are easier from just one plant, with better leaf quality.

Either sow in a tray, for pricking one seedling to a module cell, or sow two seeds per cell and thin to the strongest. Cover seeds with just a little compost, not too much.

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Transplant size and time

You will often be setting out plants just three weeks after sowing them. Once the first true leaf appears, growth is rapid, at least as fast as lettuce but less fast than brassicas.

Transplant method

Of all salad plants, endive grow closest to the ground and you can transplant them a little less deep than others. It’s an attribute of many plants growing through autumn and into winter, that they nestle down and snuggle into the soil. This actually makes outer leaves hard to pick, and gives an advantage to cutting in the dark months.

Spacing

As for many salad plants, 22 cm/9 in, in all directions. Or if you want large heads of scarole endive, 30 cm/12 in.

Interplant

The best time for interplanting between endives is in late autumn as new growth slows. I have had good results with dill and coriander, for example.

Water

You will probably need to water plants in the summer months and early autumn. Mostly, however, endive plants are growing strongly at a time of year when there is likely to be sufficient moisture, through autumn. If they are growing strongly in dry conditions, you need to water regularly, as for lettuce.

How to judge readiness

From plantings at my recommended spacing, one guide to timing your first pick is to do it when all leaves are touching each other. This is about three weeks after transplanting.

How to pick

I recommend twisting off outer leaves, which are lowest to the ground and, unfortunately, often a little dirty.

Hold the stalk of each leaf to pick between finger and thumb, close to a plant’s centre. Twist it one way then back again, detaching each stalk close to the main stem. This makes it easier to pick the next time and reduces slug interest (in old stalk ends); the stalks are tasty too.

• You can harvest by cutting across the top of plants, for harvesting less frequently but more quickly. Endives tolerate cutting better than lettuce, whose life is much shortened by cutting.

When to pick and how often

You can pick every five days or so and store leaves in a bag. Wash straight after picking, when any soil or compost is easy to wash off.

Pick in the mornings for freshest quality and for that leaves that store well. Or in the afternoon, when leaves are drier, pick cleaner leaves with less dirt. If they are limp,  you can revive them in cool water.

• It always fascinates and saddens me how, through autumn, the same plants diminish in size and stature with every passing week.

This demonstrates the importance of light levels, which decline so rapidly during October and early November. By mid-November it’s rare to have worthwhile new growth outside; it’s more likely on newer plants under cover, where better growing conditions mitigate the effects of lower light levels.

Storing

Endive leaves store better than lettuce, as long as they are moist and in a bag, preferably below 10 °C/50° F.

Saving seed

My first attempt was in 2020 when I allowed just one plant to seed in the greenhouse. We had sowed it the previous autumn and picked leaves from plants through winter and spring, then left one plant to flower and grow seed. You can see it in the first part of my melon video in Lesson 29, with pretty blue flowers.

I was not sure that this would work because it was only one plant. However the plants grown from it are excellent, six months down the line. There is no sign of inbreeding, and I conclude that endive is like lettuce – you need just one plant for viable seed. The information I can glean elsewhere is vague about this.

For pests, it’s the same likely ones as for salads above, of rabbits and slugs. Deer like endive too, much more than lettuce, and I find bird netting to be an effective barrier.

There are very few problems with disease, just a little mildew on older leaves. Pick them anyway while harvesting the good leaves, and grade them into your ‘compost bucket’. Always have two containers when picking, so that plants are tidy for the next pick. You save time in the end with a tidy approach to picking, and to gardening generally.

And finally

Clear

The first season of clearing is late autumn, as new growth ceases and it’s no longer worth coming back to pick more. Use either a trowel to cut the main stem just at or below soil level, or place your hands around the whole plant while rotating, to remove the stem and its main few roots. Then smooth or rake level the bed surface, and you are ready to transplant modules for winter.

The second season of clearing is early spring and mostly under cover, as plants rise to flower. Twist them out, rake level and spread up to 4 cm/1.5 in of compost before transplanting summer vegetables.

Follow with

You have a clean slate after endive, because they finish before plantings of the new year. I have grown lettuce (same plant family) after endive and without any problem. Any other vegetable would also work well.

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