Price range: £2.25 through £22.50
An evergreen with slightly bitter leaves for salad use. Height 30cm.
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Salad Burnet
sanguisorba minor
Approx. 200 seeds per gram
Salad burnet is a very hardy little plant. It will sometimes keep growing all through the winter or at least be one of the first shoots of spring. It is a small herbaceous perennial and its hardiness is due to the rhizomes from which it grows. It will grow in sun or semi-shade. The leaves are pinnate, in twos, opposite each other along the stem. They are highly serrated and very pretty. It is an attractive, bushy plant which makes it very suitable as a border for the veg or herb garden. The young leaves are the best ones to eat, they have a slight cucumber flavour. The tiny green and red spheres of flowers appear in Summer.
How to grow:
Sow seed from March until September directly into growing site. Prepare the ground well and sow thinly in drills. Cover with fine soil and water, if necessary, until the seedlings have grown. Thin to about 30cm apart. Pick regularly to encourage new leaves and remove flowering stems. You can start seeds off inside by putting a pinch of seed into 8cm pots. Salad burnet is suitable to grow in pots and containers.
Pests and diseases:
Salad burnet is a very hardy herb and does not suffer from any particular pests and diseases.
How to use:
Use the pretty fresh leaves in salad or as a garnish or chop and combine with cream cheese in sandwiches. Put sprigs in summer drinks for their cooling effect. Tie a bunch of salad burnet in cheesecloth or muslin and add it to bath water where it is said to be invigorating and refreshing. An infusion of the leaf is also used as a face wash and is good for sunburn and a skin cleanser.