Starting a Raised Bed for Salad Leaves and Herbs

By Growing Strawberries in Pots and Hanging Baskets
Comments 35
22 Aug 2026

Starting a Raised Bed for Salad Leaves and Herbs

Why a Raised Bed Earns Its Space

If your patch is small — a courtyard, a strip of lawn behind the shed, or a half-plot on the allotment — a raised bed is one of the best investments you can make. You control the soil, you can reach every plant without treading on it, and you can work it earlier in the year because the compost warms up faster than open ground.

A bed roughly 1.2m wide and 2.4m long is the classic size: wide enough to give you decent rows, narrow enough to reach the middle from either side without stepping on the soil. Timber boards about 20–25cm deep are plenty for salads and herbs, since neither crops deep. Line the base with cardboard if you are building over grass or weeds, then fork over the ground beneath it to help drainage. If slugs are a constant nuisance, a bed raised to 40cm helps, and it saves your back too.

Filling the Bed with Weed-Free Compost

The whole point of a raised bed is that you start with clean growing material. Don't dig in garden soil from elsewhere — that's how you import bindweed, couch grass and every weed seed in the neighbourhood.

Roughly two-thirds peat-free multipurpose compost mixed with one-third well-rotted garden compost or soil conditioner.
Add a handful of slow-release general fertiliser per square metre, or a couple of handfuls of chicken pellets raked into the top 10cm.
Top up annually. Compost sinks as it settles and is used up, so every spring add 5cm of fresh material before sowing.

Mulch the surface as soon as you have sown, using a thin layer of compost or grass-free leafmould. This keeps moisture in and stops weed seeds from getting a foothold. Most salad failures in small gardens come down to a bed that dries out, not to poor seed.

Choose Cut-and-Come-Again Leaves

Forget hearted lettuces and giant cabbage. In a small bed you want leaves you harvest with scissors and which grow back for weeks. These are the workhorses:

Loose-leaf lettuces — 'Salad Bowl', 'Red Salad Bowl', 'Lollo Rossa'. Sow a pinch every three weeks for a continuous supply.
Rocket — fast, peppery, and happiest sown in spring or late summer, as it bolts in high summer heat.
Mizuna and mibuna — mild mustardy leaves that keep going right through autumn.
Spinach 'Perpetual' — a cut-and-come-again leaf that reliably overwinters in most of the UK.
Pak choi and komatsuna — quick, tender and ideal for stir-fries.

Sow thinly in shallow drills about 1cm deep, or scatter over the surface and cover with a fine dusting of compost. Aim for rows 15cm apart. Germination takes seven to fourteen days in mild weather. Once seedlings are up, thin them to about 5cm apart — tedious, but crowded seedlings run to seed early and taste dull.

Herbs That Work Hard in a Small Bed

Perennial herbs are the permanent residents of your bed, so plant them at one end and leave them be. Choose the tough ones that shrug off British weather.

Chives — cut to the base and they regrow within a fortnight.
Parsley — biennial, so sow fresh every year.
Thyme, oregano and winter savory — drought-tolerant and useful for edges.
Mint — always in a sunken pot, or it will take over the entire bed within a season.
Basil and coriander — treat as annuals; sow in late May once nights are warm, and keep sowing through summer.

Herbs rarely need rich compost. Too much nitrogen makes soft, tasteless growth, so don't plant them directly into a heavily manured corner. A moderately fertile spot is ideal.

Sowing, Watering and Keeping It Going

Start sowing in March under fleece or a cloche if you want the earliest leaves; unprotected sowings generally begin in earnest from early April. Sow a short row of leaves every fortnight until late August, then switch to winter-hardy sorts such as lamb's lettuce, land cress and 'Perpetual' spinach for pickings through to the following spring.

Harvest with scissors once leaves are 8–10cm tall, cutting about 2cm above the crown rather than pulling plants out. Water in dry spells, ideally in the morning, aiming at the base rather than the leaves. Feed with a diluted liquid seaweed every two weeks after the first cut to keep regrowth strong. Watch for slugs after rain, flea beetle on rocket in dry weather, and aphids under leaves in July. A quick check every couple of days catches all of these early, and a bed you visit daily is a bed that produces almost all year round.

Vegetables

Pruning Soft Fruit Bushes for Better Harvests

Sow small batches of quick crops every few weeks to avoid gluts and keep fresh produce coming from beds, pots and allotment plots.

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5 Comments

Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply
- John Abraham says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
  
  I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
  Reply
  - Robert Sonnysays Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
    
    I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
    Reply
Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply

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