Salad greens provide market gardeners with a high-value crop that brings a premium price if grown and marketed successfully. Salad mixes have become particularly popular among customers seeking convenience. Salad mix is a collection of leafy greens pre-mixed and sold together. This idea originated in France centuries ago where a mix of immature baby greens was called mesclun. The greens can be grown as a mixture in the field or combined after harvest.
Because of their highly perishable nature, salad greens are better suited to local production than long-distance shipping. Growers should be aware that the inputs necessary to produce a quality crop can be high and include a lot of hand labor. The crops discussed in this publication include four types of lettuce (crisphead, butterhead, romaine, and leaf), spinach, endive, escarole, radicchio, witloof, and Swiss chard (25 pages; 2003).
