Purslane and more specifically golden purslane (rather than green) is a delight of summer. Considered a weed in some countries, where it grows on poor soil, with little water, it's transformed when commercial varieties are properly cultivated. It's usually rated as the top salad 'green' in our mixes from July until September. It's not hardy, so it's best planted after the last frost date, but we like it too much to wait for that so we grow it under-cover.
It's also extremely healthy, the stems have loads of vitamin C and A and the leaves have lots of Omega 3 oils.
It is however not as prolific as traditional salad greens, so you need to grow a lot more of it than lettuce.
Golden purslane starts off giving a small harvest in early summer, which picks up quite considerably as the weather warms. We generally work on about 10 plants per person if you just want to use it as a garnish, but if you like it you could easily get through the harvest from 20 plants per person, which translates to 0.5m2/person.
https://airtable.com/shrqFQQbYAy3ruL4T
Following my usual system, I will grow a first early crop in large hanging baskets in my polytunnel, then a second early crop in a cold-frame, followed by a main-crop outside and finally a late crop back in polytunnel hanging baskets again.
I sow these successions as follows:
In theory you can keep harvesting the same plants continuously from June to September, but I find they get exhausted after about eight harvests and the quality declines.
There are three options for sowing purslane: