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It never fails. When I arrive for dinner at a friend’s house with a bowl of home-grown salad greens, they pause — eyeing its simple state — and then ask if I need to add anything to it before serving. When I say no, eyebrows raise. After the first bite, and subsequent moans of flavor-exploding enjoyment, no one questions why my salads have nothing but lettuce in them. “Adding anything else would insult the lettuce,” a friend commented through a mouthful of greens.

Why settle for that slimy bag of baby greens in the vegetable drawer when you can have a 3-month supply of fresh, exotic salad greens growing right outside your door? Grow these exciting heirloom varieties that, when combined, create the perfect garden salad:

• Red Oak Leaf
• Forellenschluss (means “speckled like a trout’s back”)
• Rouge D’hiver
• Simpson Black Seeded
• Four Seasons
• Reine Des Glaces
• Roquette arugula
• Mizuna mustard greens
• Viroflay spinach
• Add Big Leaf basil, cilantro or parsley if desired.
• Dress with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.

These greens can be grown in as little as 6 square feet, in pots or in the ground. Harvest the outside leaves of the plant and it will produce through spring.

Christy Wilhelmi is founder of Gardenerd.com, the ultimate resource for garden nerds.  She is a board member of Ocean View Farms Organic Community Garden in Mar Vista, California, and gardens almost exclusively with heirloom vegetables. Christy teaches organic gardening classes and offers hands-on garden consulting and food garden design.  She is also working on a novel, cookbook and working towards a Gardening show on TV.

Contact Christy Wilhelmi  at www.Gardenerd.com or 310-391-3949