Plant · P-288

Corn Salad

Valerianella locusta

Corn salad, also called mache, is a small winter salad green with a very mild, delicate flavour that makes it prized as a garnish and salad base rather than a bulk crop. It runs the opposite calendar to most greens - sown from early autumn through late winter, it takes hard frost and light snow and finishes before the first hot week arrives. Left to bolt in spring, the whole plant, including the flowers, stays edible, and the seed it drops re-establishes the bed the following autumn without being resown. A close native relative already grows wild on disturbed, moist ground and can be foraged in spring instead of buying seed.