Salad Greens Project

The CSU Specialty Crops Program is currently growing salad greens for our CSU CSA and for the Aspen Grille, a restaurant on our campus which is managed and operated by students in the CSU Restaurant and Resort Management Program.

		For the restaurant, we grow approximately 5-10 lbs./week of salad mix , as well as some arugula, mizuna, and baby spinach. We have been experimenting in the greenhouse with different containers, soil mixes, and seeding rates. One experiment has involved the re-use of hydroponic gutters with soil. Click here for a report on a student research project conducted by Peter Mendicino using these gutters for salad mix production (Adobe Acrobat .pdf file).

We have also tried to grow salad mix using plastic germination trays and large tomato packing trays. We have found that the most efficient way of harvesting salad mix in trays is to cut it with an electric knife while propped up on its side. The lettuce falls into a container below. We plant all of our greens into a soil mixture that is made up of 20% worm castings. This helps reduce or can even eliminate the need for additional fertilization. With the addition of some fish emulsion fertilizer, and if there were no serious aphid problems, we could often get 2-3 harvests from one planting.

Our most common insect pest in the salad mix is aphids. These are treated with insecticidal soap if it is a severe problem and followed with subsequent releases of ladybird beetle larvae. Another problem with greenhouse production of salad greens is that they are often "soft". We find that putting a fan on the greens when the plants are around 1-2" tall helps to give the lettuce more resiliency and a thicker texture which also helps to extend its shelf life. The salad greens grown in our greenhouse with these methods last 2+ weeks.

We will continue our experiments to find optimal methods for greenhouse salad greens production as this is a crop which is in high demand in Colorado, especially during the winter months.

Click here for a link to an ATTRA publication on organic salad greens production.

Last updated 3/20/06