Visit Charles Dowding, 48, and his family for lunch at their farmhouse in Shepton Montague, Somerset, and you will find some home-grown salad on your plate, whatever the season.

Dowding was one of the first growers to produce organic vegetable boxes, back in 1983: today he supplies local shops and restaurants with his leaves. Here are some of his tips for making every day a salad day.

- Feed the soil, rather than the plants. “It’s much simpler,” he says. “Look after the soil and everything else follows. You get strong, healthy plants and fewer pests and diseases.” He gives his soil an annual top-up of 2in of farmhouse manure, homemade compost or compost made from recycled garden waste and bought from the local authority (ask yours if it has this service: many do).

- Contrary to received wisdom about getting out with a spade to incorporate any compost you’ve spread over the soil, let the worms do the work for you. Dowding says that digging breaks up the soil structure and brings dormant weeds to the top. He layers on compost every year; the bed will become slightly raised, but will reduce as the worms do their work.

- Salads are normally associated with summer eating, but Dowding grows a running supply of leaves: “Keep sowing at intervals from March to early September. July and August are as important for sowing salads as the spring period.” These include oriental leaves such as mizuna and pak choi, to keep you supplied in winter.

- For salad leaves, sow thinly on the soil surface and cover with a thin layer of compost. When the plants are big enough to handle, about three weeks after germination, you can thin them by picking off baby leaves to eat, or space them more widely so that they will grow bigger.

- For a long crop with minimal effort, start picking off leaves between two and four weeks after spacing out the plants.

“The larger outer leaves can be carefully picked off [never using a knife] to leave the plant looking quite denuded, but always with no fewer than four of its youngest leaves at the centre.” This will give you a lasting crop in a relatively small area. “A miserly three sowings of lettuce can provide leaves for the whole season from late April to early November.”

- To ensure healthy, abundant crops, choose the right varieties to mature at a time when they will not be killed by frosts and pests are not around. Oriental leaves are susceptible to caterpillars in summer sowings. Sow in August and they will give you crops from autumn through winter.

- Think outside the salad bag: as well as the usual salad leaves, add other summer flavours: the young tips of peas and broad bean plants, coloured chards, celery leaves, purslane, dill and parcel (celery-flavoured parsley).

- Spring is the time for growing lettuce, above all, as this is the time it grows most healthily. Good varieties for continuous picking include: ‘Bergano’: a bright green, deeply crinkled type that grows steadily for a long period. If sown in April, it should keep cropping until late July. ‘Catalogna’: a vigorous mid-green Italian lettuce with long, serrated leaves. Good for early sowing. ‘Little Gem’: probably the most well known, a small and sweet cos type, it takes two to three months to develop a heart. Space closer at 6in. ‘Grenoble Red’: with crisp, green and bronzed leaves, it’s hardy in winter. ‘Salad Bowl’: found in all seed catalogues, green or red oak leaf.

Suppliers: Edwin Tucker & Sons, 01364 652 233, www.edwintucker.com ; The Real Seed Catalogue, 01239 821 107, www.realseeds.co.uk; Tamar Organics, 01579 371 087, www.tamarorganics.co.uk

Organic Gardening: The Natural No-Dig Way by Charles Dowding is published by Green Books (£10.95)

For more information on vegetable- growing, visit www.charlesdowding.co.uk

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