How to Plant a Salad Bowl Outdoors In February That's Ready to Harvest in 3 Weeks

Don't you long for a taste of spring when the weather's been cold for so long, you're tired of soups and stews? A fresh salad with just-picked lettuce leaves, slightly spicy scallions and sweet green peas seems far away when you're flipping through the winter months on the calendar.

Don't despair. Pick up a bottle of your favorite salad dressing, or mix up some good oil and vinegar, and get ready to harvest three of the fastest-growing cool-season veggies: leafy greens, peas and scallions (also called green onions). We've got the skinny on how to grow a salad bowl of veggies you can harvest in just weeks--maybe even before the rabbits can find it!

How to Plant a Salad Bowl of Greens, Peas and Scallions

Where to Plant

In containers, raised beds and bags: For best results, use bagged planting soil in raised beds or a good quality potting soil in bowls or containers. Salad bowls and containers--we're using the words interchangeably here--should be at least 6 inches deep and 12 inches wide for most leafy greens and scallions. For garden peas, use a container at least 8 to 12 inches deep and 12 to 14 inches in diameter, and add trellises or other supports that the vines can climb as they grow. Although these three crops have shallow roots, deeper containers are better, as a rule of thumb, so the soil doesn't dry quickly. Be sure your container has drainage holes, or make some in it. Fabric grow bags also work.

Directly in the ground: You can plant directly in the ground as long as the soil is workable--that is, not frozen--and not overly wet. If the soil is soggy, seeds and young plants can rot, especially while the temperatures are low. If you're planting directly in the ground, loosen the soil, remove weeds, sticks and other debris and mix in lots of compost to enrich it and improve drainage.

Spacing the Plants

Check seed packets and labels for spacing information. You can often plant closer for edibles that you'll harvest early and while they're small.

What to Know about Sun and Shade

These cool-season salad veggies need four to six hours or more of sun each day. Read your seed packets or plant labels to know how long you can expect your spring crops to last. Once the weather starts to warm up, you may be able to extend your harvest by giving them some shade. Once they're finished, remove them and plant something else that tolerates more heat and sunlight, or wait until fall, when the temperatures cool back down, and replant your cool-season salad vegetables. Leafy greens, scallions and most peas can take light frost.

How to Harvest

You don't have to wait until these veggies are completely mature to harvest them. For example, you cut baby lettuce leaves at any size; just don't cut off all of them at one time, so the plants can regrow. Pick young peas regularly to encourage the plants to make more; young peas are usually sweeter and more tender than when they're mature, anyway. Snip the green tops of scallions in about 15 to 22 days after planting (chop them up and use them like chives in a salad), and leave the bases to regrow. The white parts of the scallions are mature when the tops are 10 to 12 inches tall.

The Fastest Growing Varieties of Greens, Peas and Scallions

Leafy Greens - Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Leaf lettuces mature fast; heading lettuces, like 'Iceberg,' take longer, so opt for a variety like 'Black Seeded Simpson', which produces baby leaves you can cut in about 28 days, or a cut-and-come-again variety to cut in 30 days like 'Oakleaf'. Lettuces aren't the only fast-growing, cool-season leafy salad veggies. Try kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala), Asian greens like Bok Choy (Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis), spinach (Spinacia oleracea), arugula (Eruca sativa) and others to put a rainbow in your salad bowl in shades of green, bronze and red.

Scallions (Allium fistulosum)

Slip onion sets (small, immature onion bulbs) into fertile, well-drained soil. These tall, slender plants can thrive in salad bowls, raised beds or the garden once the soil is workable; plant them in rows or between other plants. Pull the entire plants if you want the white bulbs, or snip the green tops to an inch or two above the soil line, and let them regrow. Green onions usually taste milder when they're harvested young, and become more pungent when they mature. Plant onion seeds in loose, fine soil, cover them lightly with more fine soil or light potting soil and water them in. These veggies are usually ready in 30 to 60 days when grown from sets. When grown from seeds--depending on the variety--they may take 6 to 12 weeks. 'Parade' is ready in about 60 days from seed.

Peas (Pisum sativum)

Sweeten your salad bowl with a handful of fresh, just-picked green peas. Their sugars turn to starch within several hours of harvesting, so use them quickly. Try peas with edible pods, like snow peas or sugar snap peas, or shelling peas like garden or English peas. Varieties that mature in about 50 to 60 days include 'Alaska'. Stringless 'Sugar Sprint' garden peas take around 60 to 70.

More Fast-Growing Cool-Season Veggies

While these crops are some of the earliest salad vegetables you can harvest, don't stop there. Try growing...

• Carrots: turn to round, short or stubby carrot varieties, and their small roots will be ready to pull in about 50 to 55 days.
• Beets: 'Early Wonder Tall Top' is a great choice, and the smooth, bright red roots can be harvested in about 45 days. The leafy green tops can be cut in approximately 35 days. Or harvest the roots of quick-growing baby-beet varieties like 'Better Than Schrute's' in roughly 40 days.
• Radishes: they are also fast growing crops, ready to harvest in 22 to 30 days from sowing. They're fine for planting in small containers, and you can snip the peppery green tops to toss into your salads. Try a variety like round, crispy 'Cherry Belle' or cylindrical, red and white 'French Breakfast'.
• Mustard greens: Asian greens like Mizuna (B. rapa ssp. nipponsinica var. laciniata) and fast-growing, cool-season herbs like parsley, chives and dill.