Grow salad greens indoors year-round with these essential tips on lighting, watering, soil, and more.
Examples of salad greens includelettuce,spinach,arugula, mizuna, and more.
Use these must-know tips to ensure your salad greens thrive indoors.
Credit:Geshas / Getty Images
Provide Ample Sunlight
Salad greens need plenty of sunlight to growtypically around six hours a day.
Grow them in a windowsill or near a south or east-facing window that receives bright light.
check that the temperature doesn’t get too warm as this cancause lettuce and other greens to bolt.
Plant in Well-Draining Soil
Use a vegetable potting mix to sow seeds.
Don’t use garden soil for your indoor plants because it won’t drain well in a container.
Plus it may contain pests, plant diseases, and weed seeds.
Potting soils aredesigned to drain well, minimizing issues from waterlogged soil.
Keep Soil Moist
Growing salad greens from seed requires monitoring the soil moisture closely.
Avoid soggy soil as this will hinder your salad greens from growing and couldlead to root rot.
Know Germination Temperatures
Salad greens do best in cooler weather so pay attention to the indoor temperature.
Many salad green seeds germinate when the temperature is between 50-70F.
Check the seed packet to know the exact range each key in of salad green needs.
Once the seedlings emerge, pay attention to the indoor temperature.
Warmer conditions can cause some types of salad greens to venture to flower (known as bolting) sooner.
However, many tendersalad greens do best in higher humidity.
To create more humid conditions around your plants, place a humidifier nearby.
Loose leaf lettuce can take longer, up to 40-50 days, unless you want to harvest baby leaves.
Harvest leaves with scissors when the leaves are 3-4 inches tall.
Snip off the outer leaves first if you want to let the plants continue growing more leaves.
Known assuccession planting, this continuous sowing schedule ensures you have fresh salad greens available whenever you want them.
Mix and match greens so you have a variety to eat.
