Edible Indoor All Year Gardening – Salad Bowls 101

Salad Bowls Explained

Let’s talk about all year gardening salad bowls and these are bowls or pots where you can grow your own salad greens.

You can repurpose an old traditional salad bowl to grow your lettuce. Glass bowls don’t work as well since it’s impossible to add drainage holes in the bottom. Your wooden bowls should work well though as do ceramic planter bowls or even pots you’re no longer using for potted plants.

The basic idea is simple. You get a bowl or pot, fill it with potting soil, and plant your salad and salad fixings. A salad or lettuce bowl can include several different varieties of lettuce and a few of your favorite herbs. Or you can divide everything up in several different containers and grow a small tomato plant and a few green onions as well. Mix and match as you see fit, depending on what you like to eat.

That’s the fun of growing your own food. You can try different varieties and combinations until you come up with the one that works best for you. Along the way, you get to sample and try different varieties of lettuce your local market doesn’t offer. There’s so much more than iceberg lettuce and spinach out there.

Salad bowls are small and compact way to give gardening a try. They are also an excellent tool to help teach your children about where our food comes from and how it is grown.

Get the little ones involved in planting and caring for the lettuce plants. Not only is it a great learning experience, it’s also a wonderful way to get them to eat more greens. After all, they’ve grown this lettuce.

Lettuce plants don’t have very deep roots, which is why shallow bowls work perfectly for planting them indoors. And since it won’t get super-hot – even in a sunny window- you don’t need a large amount of soil to retain moisture. In other words, shallow bowls are a great way to grow a large amount of lettuce in little space or soil.

To get started, get a nice shallow planting bowl and a bag of quality potting soil that includes a slow release fertilizer appropriate for vegetables. Or if you’re composting already, well-aged compost would make a rich organic way to fertilize your lettuce. Get them started, watch them grow and harvest once they grow to maturity. Eat and enjoy!

 

Learn How to Grow Your Own Salad Bowl in the Edible Gardening section of All Year Gardening.

A Never- ending Supply Of Greens from Your Salad Bowls

Start your first bowl, plant it and let it grow for about two weeks. Then set up your next bowl. This way you have new growth and fresh lettuce ready for eating about two weeks apart. If needed add a third bowl a few weeks later.

Plant your lettuce from seed, or start with small plants from your local nursery. If you’re using seedlings, go ahead and get seeds as well. The idea is to continually have more lettuce plants coming up as you’re harvesting.

Loose leaf lettuce also has the advantage of putting out more growth if you carefully harvest the leaves. To harvest the leaves, wait until the outer leaves reach a length of two to three inches. Use scissors to carefully cut the leaves, then rinse them in cool water and spin them dry. They will keep in the fridge for several days. Wait 2 to 3 days before you cut the same plant again.

Work your way around the lettuce bowl, harvesting every couple of days, then move on to the second bowl and give the first a little extra time to recover. Make sure your plants thrive with plenty of sunshine, just the right amount of watering, and the occasional bit of fertilizer if needed to keep the plants growing strong.

As your plants start to grow bigger and crowd each other out, it may be advantageous to thin them. Harvest entire loose leaf lettuce plants to give the remaining plants in your bowls room to spread out. As you do this, take the time to throw in some seeds, or start fresh lettuce seedlings in a new container. Your main plants will continue to grow and produce more greens for you and your family.

Eventually the lettuce will start to bolt. You’ll notice that the middle part will grow taller and it starts to form flowering stalks. At this point your lettuce leaves will start to get tough and bitter. It’s time to harvest and remove these plants. If you’ve planted seeds in the bowl previously, you should have plenty of little lettuce plants coming up to take the place of the old ones. If you’ve been growing seedlings in the different container, now is the time to plant them in your main salad bowls provided they are large enough.

Edible Indoor All Year Gardening – Salad Bowls 101

With a little bit of experience, you’ll get the timing down perfectly for your particular types of lettuce, the rate they grow, and how much you’re harvesting for the kitchen. It won’t take you long to figure out a rhythm that allows you to have a never ending supply of greens to enjoy.