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Salad Leaves For All Seasons: Organic Growing from Pot to Plot
Known as the guru of no-dig, Charles Dowding has updated the definitive book on salad growing in this hardback, beautifully illustrated edition. In it he shows how to- Charles is an expert grower who inspires you to grow your own healthy and tasty salad, while maintaining the health of the soil and saving on your food bill. Over 10,000 copies of the previous edition have been sold to gardeners and food lovers keen to eat tasty food with a low carbon footprint.
- GenresGardeningNonfiction
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
15 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
About the author
Charles Dowding
24 books1,020 followersCharles Dowding has been pioneering organic, no dig gardening since 1982, when he began growing vegetables on a 6,000m² plot in Somerset, UK. From the beginning, his no dig methods delivered healthy, abundant crops, with fewer weeds and no need for synthetic inputs. At the time, nobody else was growing commercially at this scale without digging, and Charles has been refining the approach ever since.
Today, he shares the simplicity and power of no dig gardening with a global audience, through his books, courses, YouTube videos, social media, and regular travels to connect with growers around the world.
Charles published his first book, Organic Gardening, in 2007, and has since written 14 more. His most recent titles include New Energies for Gardening (April 2025) and Compost (September 2024). He also produces an annual Calendar of Sowing Dates, packed with practical tips based on his trials and growing experience.
From his 1,600m² Homeacres market garden in Somerset, Charles continues to experiment with crops and methods – comparing dig and no dig plots, testing new varieties, and refining techniques. The garden yields around £35,000 of produce annually and serves as a living example of how low-input, soil-first methods can lead to healthy plants and sustainable harvests.
Charles is passionate about helping others find joy and success in growing food, and believes that no dig is not just a method, but a mindset.
Today, he shares the simplicity and power of no dig gardening with a global audience, through his books, courses, YouTube videos, social media, and regular travels to connect with growers around the world.
Charles published his first book, Organic Gardening, in 2007, and has since written 14 more. His most recent titles include New Energies for Gardening (April 2025) and Compost (September 2024). He also produces an annual Calendar of Sowing Dates, packed with practical tips based on his trials and growing experience.
From his 1,600m² Homeacres market garden in Somerset, Charles continues to experiment with crops and methods – comparing dig and no dig plots, testing new varieties, and refining techniques. The garden yields around £35,000 of produce annually and serves as a living example of how low-input, soil-first methods can lead to healthy plants and sustainable harvests.
Charles is passionate about helping others find joy and success in growing food, and believes that no dig is not just a method, but a mindset.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 23, 2009
Who knew there was so much to say about lettuce?
Comprehensive, authoritative, exhaustive...and unintentionally humorous. Has this author got a hate-on for slugs! In fact, if the reader drank a shot each time the word "slugs" was mentioned, the reader would be seriously sloshed by the end of the book! The war on slugs, and the slightly ... odd ... chapter on lunar influences/plantings adds just the right note of eccentricity to this British gardener's master work.
Comprehensive, authoritative, exhaustive...and unintentionally humorous. Has this author got a hate-on for slugs! In fact, if the reader drank a shot each time the word "slugs" was mentioned, the reader would be seriously sloshed by the end of the book! The war on slugs, and the slightly ... odd ... chapter on lunar influences/plantings adds just the right note of eccentricity to this British gardener's master work.
November 24, 2019
He is my hero.
March 26, 2012
Anything and everything you could possibly want to know about growing leaves and greens for salad.
August 24, 2019
I loved this book! Charles Dowding is a fantastic teacher. His books and videos, combined with the book High Yield Vegetable Gardening and the Seattle Tilth garden guide, have been extremely influential in how I've set up my garden this summer.
Dowding is one of the pioneers of the "no dig" method, which is basically where you dump compost on top of where you want to garden and then put seeds/transplants in that. It's an alternative to tilling. The emphasis is on soil health and improving that from the top down. I've seen great results with it this summer, and can't wait to apply it to more beds. My soil is very rocky. The idea of tilling it... ahhh it sounds overwhelming! It's already a lot of work to transplant seedlings that need to be planted deeply (though I have gotten quite a nice collection of rocks out of it). I can't imagine doing that across multiple 8' x 4' spaces.
One of the advantages of Dowding's books is that the climate he writes about is similar to mine. Like Britain, the Puget Sound area gets a lot of rain in the fall/winter/spring and we have mild summers. If you live in an area with more year round warmth, the growing calendars suggested won't work as well for you, but there is still a lot of information that's helpful no matter your location!
I had two favorite parts of this book, chapters 18 and 19. They go over indoor sowing and how to have lettuce year round. I'm looking forward to trying that out.
Also, one of the vinaigrette recipes is so delicious! I think it's the autumn one. Came together beautifully with a nice sweetness.
Dowding is one of the pioneers of the "no dig" method, which is basically where you dump compost on top of where you want to garden and then put seeds/transplants in that. It's an alternative to tilling. The emphasis is on soil health and improving that from the top down. I've seen great results with it this summer, and can't wait to apply it to more beds. My soil is very rocky. The idea of tilling it... ahhh it sounds overwhelming! It's already a lot of work to transplant seedlings that need to be planted deeply (though I have gotten quite a nice collection of rocks out of it). I can't imagine doing that across multiple 8' x 4' spaces.
One of the advantages of Dowding's books is that the climate he writes about is similar to mine. Like Britain, the Puget Sound area gets a lot of rain in the fall/winter/spring and we have mild summers. If you live in an area with more year round warmth, the growing calendars suggested won't work as well for you, but there is still a lot of information that's helpful no matter your location!
I had two favorite parts of this book, chapters 18 and 19. They go over indoor sowing and how to have lettuce year round. I'm looking forward to trying that out.
Also, one of the vinaigrette recipes is so delicious! I think it's the autumn one. Came together beautifully with a nice sweetness.
March 14, 2021
I'm reading this book again to bulk-up as we venture into a new garden project.
This book kicked off a lot of things for me. It clued me into 'leafing' lettuce and 'no dig' growing methods that greatly reduce the impacts gardening.
Charles Dowding is a Brit who's been selling primarily salad for 30+years. His leaf and flavor combinations are known through out his region and his reach has grown to international acclaim. Lay folk may not know the name but among greenthumbs he is a force of nature; a guidepost to measure ourselves by.
This book kicked off a lot of things for me. It clued me into 'leafing' lettuce and 'no dig' growing methods that greatly reduce the impacts gardening.
Charles Dowding is a Brit who's been selling primarily salad for 30+years. His leaf and flavor combinations are known through out his region and his reach has grown to international acclaim. Lay folk may not know the name but among greenthumbs he is a force of nature; a guidepost to measure ourselves by.
April 29, 2018
My library had this book presented, and I do not think it was necessarily the best move. That is not to say that this is a bad book, but the book is tailor-made to showing how to grow salad leaves in the UK in all seasons and that is not always very applicable to a climate like that of Oregon. Even so, as someone who likes to eat salads all year round [1], I found a great deal to enjoy in this book. If you read this book, you are likely to enjoy salads as well and you may even be likely to have a fondness for the sort of organic ideals that the author does. Those who do not eat salads all that avidly are also not the people who are likely to devote considerable time trying to grow salad greens year round for their own table. This is the sort of book whose topic matter rather nicely self-selects its reading audience, something that probably happens a fair amount when it comes to books that are published and that are put on display in a library.
This book of almost 200 pages is made up of 4 parts and 19 mostly short chapters. First, the author begins by talking about growing leaves (I) through learning new tricks to get high yields from small spaces using special methods (1), and by focusing on ways to sow less and pick more (2). He discusses experimenting with salad beds to slow, plant, and harvest throughout the year (3) and pick baby leaves when one has to grow in confined spaces (4), focusing on the palette of leaf colors to work with (5). He continues by talking about how to sow, raise, and sustain healthy plants indoors and outdoors (6), bring new energy to soil, plants, and ourselves (7), and deal with slugs and other pests (8). After this the author spends some time looking at the seasons of harvest (II) by showing salad plants that grow year round (9), giving some terrible recipes for all seasons (10). The author then turns to celebrating outdoor leaves (III) by writing about lettuce (11), endives and chicories (12), cabbages (13), spinach, chard, and beet (14), exotic tastes and colors (15), herbs and flowers (16), and outdoor winter salads (17). The author then closes the book with a discussion on indoor sowing and growing (IV), with the benefits of sowing indoors (18), as well as growing salad leaves indoors through the winter (19) before including some English resources and an index.
The author clearly has different tastes than I do, and to some extent that makes this book less enjoyable for me than it would have been otherwise. I think being English certainly accounts in part for the unpleasant recipes offered for what would otherwise be some spectacular salad plants. Even so, there are some worthwhile insights that this book provides that are well worth pointing out. For example, the author comments that pests tend to select plants that are distressed in some fashion. Rather than being (too) angry at such flies and aphids and slugs, it is worthwhile to wonder what is causing problems with the plants that would make them attractive to pests. Most of the time, I think, people are unaware of the positive side of animals that we tend to think poorly of, but it is worthwhile to note that trouble does deliberately seek out those who are already struggling, something that some people would know without having to read it in a book about plants. As long as you focus on the author's techniques and less on the author's recipes and opinions about plants, this is a worthwhile book.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
This book of almost 200 pages is made up of 4 parts and 19 mostly short chapters. First, the author begins by talking about growing leaves (I) through learning new tricks to get high yields from small spaces using special methods (1), and by focusing on ways to sow less and pick more (2). He discusses experimenting with salad beds to slow, plant, and harvest throughout the year (3) and pick baby leaves when one has to grow in confined spaces (4), focusing on the palette of leaf colors to work with (5). He continues by talking about how to sow, raise, and sustain healthy plants indoors and outdoors (6), bring new energy to soil, plants, and ourselves (7), and deal with slugs and other pests (8). After this the author spends some time looking at the seasons of harvest (II) by showing salad plants that grow year round (9), giving some terrible recipes for all seasons (10). The author then turns to celebrating outdoor leaves (III) by writing about lettuce (11), endives and chicories (12), cabbages (13), spinach, chard, and beet (14), exotic tastes and colors (15), herbs and flowers (16), and outdoor winter salads (17). The author then closes the book with a discussion on indoor sowing and growing (IV), with the benefits of sowing indoors (18), as well as growing salad leaves indoors through the winter (19) before including some English resources and an index.
The author clearly has different tastes than I do, and to some extent that makes this book less enjoyable for me than it would have been otherwise. I think being English certainly accounts in part for the unpleasant recipes offered for what would otherwise be some spectacular salad plants. Even so, there are some worthwhile insights that this book provides that are well worth pointing out. For example, the author comments that pests tend to select plants that are distressed in some fashion. Rather than being (too) angry at such flies and aphids and slugs, it is worthwhile to wonder what is causing problems with the plants that would make them attractive to pests. Most of the time, I think, people are unaware of the positive side of animals that we tend to think poorly of, but it is worthwhile to note that trouble does deliberately seek out those who are already struggling, something that some people would know without having to read it in a book about plants. As long as you focus on the author's techniques and less on the author's recipes and opinions about plants, this is a worthwhile book.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
January 18, 2021
Great descriptions of a wide variety of salad greens and their best growing times and conditions. Realistic/inexpensive methods for stretching the growing season beyond what is typical for a growing zone.
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December 27, 2010Not many pictures, but lots of great info on all the different types of greens - how they taste, what they are used for. Lots of good info for how to grow them too (inside and out).
December 7, 2012
This was a great book. Helpful for growing greens throughout the year. Good charts for planting and harvesting dates. Specific varieties listed.
May 2, 2020
A stunning amount of very focussed information that I'll need to refer back to so I can plan out my Salad growing year a little better.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews