Valerianella locusta
Corn salad
Common names: Lamb's lettuce, Mache
Photo: Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
Description
Corn salad is the most valuable winter vegetable in the home garden and defies even hard frost. You harvest its small, nutty-tasting rosettes fresh when hardly anything else grows. Cultivars such as ‘Vit’ are robust and slow to bolt.
Care instructions
Sow it from August (week 33) until October, broadcast or in rows, on the cleared bed. Press the seed down well and keep it moist until germination. In winter you hardly need to water; cut the rosettes with a knife just above the ground, then they often flush again.
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
loamy, humus-rich, well-drained, lime-loving, nutrient-rich
Feeding
Light feeder
Companion planting
Good neighbors
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Diseases & pests
2 relevantFrom the knowledge base, automatically linked by affected species. How to spot and prevent them is covered in full in the lexicon.
Peronosporaceae
You will find that the False Mildew is not a true fungus, but an oomycete that comes from the underside of the leaf, unlike the True Mildew.
More on False MildewArion vulgaris
The Spanish slug is the most feared omnivore in the vegetable bed. It feeds at night and in damp weather, eating irregular holes into leaves, and often clears young lettuces or seedlings completely.
More on Spanish slugNotes from real gardens
What other gardeners have written down about this variety, anonymous and voluntary.
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From the magazine
Sowing lamb's lettuce in autumn: the gap-filler for the winter bed
Lamb's lettuce takes over the empty beds from late summer and supplies fresh, nutty greens into spring. The most common mistake is sowing too early and too warm. Here is how the cold germinator sprouts and how you harvest all winter.
Harvesting Winter Vegetables: Fresh from the Frost
Kale, Brussels sprouts, corn salad and parsnip stand in the bed all winter and taste even sweeter after frost. Here is how to harvest fresh from the snow without the leaves turning to mush.