I don’t know about you, but I have a really hard time buying produce that I can easily grow myself. At my house, we eat a lot of salad. As many of you know, I serve a large green salad with almost every meal that goes on the table. All of those heads of lettuce can add up!
So, I recently started looking into some ways to grow my own lettuce indoors and I thought I would share what I’m learning with y’all.
All you need is:
• A large round pot, about 6 inches deep (or a container of some sort with roughly the same depth)
• Organic potting soil (look for the kind with perlite in it—that’s those little round white balls)
• Mesclun mix seeds (or whatever lettuce you like best)
• Water
• A sunny window
You’ll need a window that gets at least 6 hours of sunlight per day. If your lettuce doesn’t get enough sun, it will get tall and spindly and that isn’t what you want.
To grow your lettuce:
1. Fill your container to the halfway mark with soil. You can sprinkle some fertilizer on there if you want to. Moisten the soil and sprinkle a couple of pinches of seeds on top. Sprinkle a little more soil over the seeds and spritz the surface with more water.
2. Water daily and keep the pot in the sun or under a grow light. The seeds should sprout up in about seven days and your first harvest should be ready in about a month.
To harvest your lettuce:
After you cut your lettuce the first time (leave the growing crowns alone!), you’ll only have to wait another two weeks for a fresh crop.
And it’s pretty much just that easy!
Fresh lettuce greens are just the best, aren’t they?
We have an ebook just for using all those delicious greens: Bounty of Salads!
4 Responses
I would love to do this, my family loves salad, but I am totally clueless. “After you cut your lettuce the first time (leave the growing crowns alone!)” what is a growing crown?
I have the same question. If possible, could you post pictures before you cut your leaves, and then one after (so we can see what to leave uncut)?
Hi Paula, Being a visual person myself, may I suggest doing a Google search of “what is a growing lettuce crown?’ and select the images and you will see what it should look like :). I’ll include the link here as well. https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+a+growing+lettuce+crown%3F&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=bTfaVN7XAYjioATrvIKQDQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1399&bih=889
Paula,
A safe way to cut the lettuce is to leave about 1″ at the
bottom. I have been doing this for many years with great success. *Use
scissors and just cut all the way across. You’ll want to wash the leaves
well – I fill up my sink and rinse really well. Get a salad spinner to
remove the extra water. A wet salad loses it’s appeal… *Salad spinners
– I have found them at 2nd hand stores for a few dollars.
Enjoy!
~Rhonda