Growing an Indoor Salad

INSIDE : Learn the benefits of growing an indoor salad! You will be so happy growing lettuce in your home for quick homemade salads. See how I planted Arugula, Romaine and Spinach this year.

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If you haven’t tasted fresh homegrown lettuce, you are missing out. It’s so delicious and has a high amount of vitamin A compared to the grocery store lettuces. 

And two perks of growing your own lettuce is that it grows quickly and it does well growing in small spaces like raised beds or planters. So, growing yourself a tasty salad is easier than you may think.

Let’s get into how to do it below!

Salad Growing supplies

• Long black plastic planter
• Romaine Lettuce seedling
• Arugula Lettuce seedling
• Spinach seeds
• Lightweight potting soil like Miracle-Gro Indoor Potting Mix
• Hand Trowel

How to Grow Lettuce

Start with quality potting soil

The first step to growing anything is having the proper soil. To grow a successful container vegetables using potting mix like Miracle-Grow is helpful to get the right blend of materials to create an ideal growing environment for roots inside a pot.

Make sure you are working in a space that can get a little dirty and fill your container about two thirds of the way up with your soil.

Decide on lettuce placements

Look at the planter space you have available and the different types of greens you are going to plant. You can make a pattern with your lettuce plants by alternating, keeping like plants together or making everything a complete mix.

I alternated arugula and romaine and planted a few spinach seeds here and there to fill in empty spaces.

Plant Arugula Lettuce

Remove each of the arugula plants from their pots carefully and gently loosen their root balls.

Once your arugula plants are in, add more potting soil to cover their root balls and gently press the soil into place to remove any air pockets.

How to grow Romaine Lettuce

Planting and growing romaine lettuce is very similar. Gently remove the romaine plants from their grow container and separate the roots into individual plants.

My pot came with three small romaine starts, so I divided my plant into three separate lettuces’.

Plant the romaine lettuce in the same way you did the arugula. Space the plants as evenly as you can and gently add more soil to cover the rootball.

Watering new lettuce greens

Make sure there is at least one inch of space between the soil and top of the container to prevent soil overflow when watering.

After the arugula, romaine and spinach have been planted it’s time to water them. Be very gentle with the first watering, allowing the water to slowly soak into the soil.

Your new plants are still getting acclimated to their new planter, but with a few days they should start to grow and get more hardy.

Now it’s time to sit back and let them do some growing!

What is best method for growing lettuce?

Lettuce grows best in raised beds or small containers, making it ideal for small spaces. Containers can be located in backyards, patios, balconies, and even windowsills.

Harvesting Romaine lettuce

Once you are ready to harvest your romaine lettuce, try to only do it in the evening or morning to keep the leaves crisp and unwilted. 

Use scissors and cut off individual leaves. If you choose to harvest the entire head at once, leave about an inch of the plant in the ground so that the lettuce can regrow.

How to harvest continual lettuce

To keep a full lettuce harvest over the course of the season, plan to stagger seed planting. This ensures plants grow a few weeks apart and as one head is harvested and then regrowing, the next plant will be ready to harvest.

Looking for more vegetable growing ideas? Check out some of these…

Stacked Herb Garden

How to Grow Zucchini Plants in Pots