published: Monday, February 04, 2013

Grow your own lettuce bowl indoors

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 six 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 six 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 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?

Do you do any indoor gardening? Have any tips to share? http://www.facebook.com/savingdinner