Leafy Greens Are A Rip-Off
I wrote a while back on my old blog about how flour-based products are a rip-off. They are fairly easy to make ourselves and the ingredients are cheaper than the store-bought version, so if someone has the time, there is no reason to pay others to make them for us. I'm getting the same impression about leafy greens.
We live in Maine in an apartment. There is no yard to plant a garden, yet we have been having fresh salads this winter without paying outrageous prices for out-of-season leafy greens. Leafy greens are always in season in my kitchen.
Here's how I grow them.
- Take a coffee can and make drainage holes in the bottom using nails. I use 34.5 ounce cans, but have used cans as small as baby formula cans with success.
- Put an inch or tow of "stones" in the bottom for easy drainage. I use packing peanuts or broken up pieces of styrofoam, since styrofoam cannot by put in the recycling bin.
- Fill with soil.
- Plant seed and place near window. Water.
It's that simple! In 6-8 weeks, depending on variety, you'll have your salad. If you plant enough, depending on your salad needs, you'll never have to buy leafy greens again, even in the winter.
We recently got all fancy and switched over to self-watering planters, so I have no pics at the moment, but we usually don't eat the whole plant at once. We pull a bit off here and there for tacos and sandwiches, then pull a small handfull off of each plant when we want a big salad. More leaves grow in as long as you keep it happy. We've noticed the yield goes down eventually, and then we eat the rest of the greens and replant.
Want more like this post? Read on!
- Summer Salad Here's a salad you can make without going shopping for...
- Composting Alright, you city folk, apartment dwellers, thinking that this whole...
23 Responses to “Leafy Greens Are A Rip-Off”
March 10th, 2010 at 7:16 am
You must have a small family. This method would not keep a large family eating salads on a regular basis all winter. Herbs, yes; but not salads. Sprouting would probably be a better option for cheap “greens” in the winter for larger families.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:23 am
I’d worry that the coffee can would rust, and the styrofoam would leach plastics into my plant. I’d honestly suggest repurposing food grade plastic containers…you can get the gallon sized icing buckets for free from most grocery stores.
Other than that, great idea. Ours grew in in three weeks, what variety are you using?
March 10th, 2010 at 8:48 am
We’ve been growing windowsill greens for years now.
I find that we can grow baby greens easily enough, but never ever have I managed to get a head of lettuce or enough to pull some off and have the plant continue to grow.
Also, I have planters in two windows (think long windowbox style planters) and I have never been able to harvest enough to make more than one family sized salad per month (family of five here).
We’ve been transitioning to using grow lights and small greenhouse boxes here because windowsill gardening just cannot provide adequate greens for our family’s nutritional needs.
March 10th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I think this is a great idea – but I don’t see how you can grow all your salad greens inside, unless you eat a whole lot less than we do. (And my 2 kids don’t really like salad greens – in our case, it’s about 99% me and my husband). Just for the 2 of us, indoor plantings would have to produce at least 6-8 cups of salad greens per week. Since I live in SC, I could produce that much for most of the year, in our garden. I don’t see how I could do it inside.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
This sounded like a great idea, and then I read the comments.
But I might still try it – thank you!
March 10th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I’ve had major success with sprouts and herbs on our windowsill, but I’ve never tried growing lettuce indoors. We love the nutrition that sprouts offers on sandwiches and in wraps. We actually do alfalfa sprouts almost all year round (except when the garden is in full force). But I’ve got to agree with the above commenters and say I’m not sure we have the space to grow enough traditional lettuce indoors to feed our family (2 adults and two preschoolers). It might be worth a try, though???
I usually just watch the grocery sales and coupon to get cheap lettuce. This week, we’ll be eating lots of (free) salad-based dishes in our home because bagged salads are on sale for $1/bag at our grocery store and I have a stack of $1 off coupons!
March 10th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I don’t think using styrofoam is a problem. It’s inert unless heated to a high temp, so it shouldn’t leach into the soil. But I would be worried about BPA leaching from the coffee cans into the soil. I think terracotta pots would be better.
That self-watering container looks interesting. I always container-garden in the summer, so I might have to look into that.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
I wish this would work for us. We need more than 2 leaves of lettuce. My 4 year old would eat spinach and leaf lettuce as a meal by itself. =) He loves lettuce. How do you get enough leaves for a nice salad for you and your spouse in a coffee can? I have a green thumb, but yours must be sprouting to do that. Hehehe. Do share how you make such a huge harvest in a such a small area.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
I tried growing greens before but I didn’t see much growth. I did not place anything on the bottom for easy drainage though. Maybe I’ll give it another shot! Thanks for the tip!
God Bless,
Melissa
March 10th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
You can do this in Maine? Isn’t it a little cold?
I’m living in a slightly warmer climate and my windowsils still freeze at night in the winter.
I keep on very good terms with my local greengrocer, he always has something special and will often knock a bit off for me or reccomend something new for me to try (with a bit of a price cut) that way I can stop by every day on my way home from work and have something fresh.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:56 am
I would second what Stephanie said about styrofoam – I thought the only real concern there was when it’s used to hold hot liquids like coffee or soup – not when you’re just pouring cold water over it. If the styrofoam is hot enough to leach, I’d expect the plants would be dead already.
March 11th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
How many planters do you have going at a time and how many times per week to you eat salad? Not just a leaf on a sandwich but salads? I’m interesting in starting indoor planters too for veggies and am trying to get a ball park figure if I want to eat 2/3 salads per week for a family of 6.
Thanks
March 11th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
How on earth do you have enough lettuce for large salads? I have a salad with dinner each night, plus put lettuce on my sandwiches, etc. Even if I only had a large salad once a week, it would be more than I could just “snip off.” Could you elaborate, please? I think many of use are confused.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Make sure to check out the author’s window garden at
under1000permonthDOTblogspot.com/2009/11/harvest-time.html
March 12th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Ahh. I see. Yeah, my idea of a salad is at least a handful of greens, tomatoes, onions, etc (to the liking of the person eating it) on the side of a nice meal or, if it’s just the meal, I will take a few handfuls of greens, veggies, a meat protein (chicken, turkey, etc) and possibly a hardboiled egg sliced up and thrown in. (need the protein and carbs if it’s my entire meal) I didn’t realize she was just chatting about 1 or 2 leaves per person per week. I can see how that could be done in a window garden. Thank you for the clarification. It makes a lot more sense now.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Thank you for the link Leslie. I spent a fair ammount of time trying to calculate how many indoor planters I was going to need to grow enough lettuce for salads and where to put them all. lol.
The author says in her blog that she is growing lettuce to garnish sandwiches and that she doesn’t grow enough for a diet of salad. I wonder if that has changed since she posted that in November because I am super curious to learn how she does it
March 12th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Even if you think this won’t work for your salad needs (wouldn’t work for mine) don’t disregard it as a way to save on what in my experience is far more expensive – fresh herbs. If you cook with herbs, growing your own basil, parsley, rosemary, etc. – even some garlic and chives – is a no-brainer. I don’t know about the rest of you – but at my grocery stores, I’d have to buy way more of the fresh herbs than I really need at the moment, and then they’d be all wilted by the time I could use them. Where I live, rosemary is a year-round plant, so it’s outside. I grow herbs inside in winter and outside in warmer weather – but if you don’t have a yard, you could grow them inside year-round.
March 12th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
Clisby, what’s been your experience with garlic? I grow rosemary indoors (tried to get my basil and cilantro through the winter inside, but it was just too cold and cloudy), but I’d love to try garlic. Didn’t realize it could thrive inside, and this time of year, it seems like all the garlic I buy is sprouting already.
March 13th, 2010 at 6:49 am
Clisby, I agree. Herbs are a great way to save money with an indoor garden. We don’t use cans because we don’t buy food in cans (due to the BPA leeching and such). But there are many options for a window sill garden for herbs.
March 13th, 2010 at 8:49 am
I’ve been able to grow garlic both inside and in my garden – it seems like I always end up with some sprouting, and I just plant the cloves.
Now, I live in SC, where we don’t get much really cold weather and there’s normally plenty of sunshine in the winter. I’m not sure how well it would do inside otherwise – unless you had grow lights, of course.
March 13th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
This works for garnishes or herbs but I’ve never been able to produce enough salad greens in a sunny window, here in Canada, for a family with five men.
And then there is always the problem of damping off. I get nervous adding chemical to combat that even with sterilizing the soil.
March 17th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I have found the only ways to produce greens in winter is to either go hydroponic with strong grow lights; get a heated greenhouse, again you might need grow lights; or try a cold frame.
It is worth it to me to buy my greens during the winter. I can always add home grown microgreens like the ones from http://www.territorialseed.com/prod_detail_list/s.
We can start greens outdoors in February. Except for the hot part of the summer, August, I start greens every two weeks to transplat out. That way we have greens for at least six to eight months, if I remember to cover the last planting on frosty nights.
Decadent Housewife, try using potting mix rather than garden soil for your container plants. I covered that in my blog, http://susan-chicdaisy.blogspot.com/2010/03/starting-seeds-and-repotting-plants.html.
Stephanie, garlic planted this time of year may not form small cloves. You may just end up with one giant clove. No worries, it still tastes the same.
Susan
http://susan-chicdaisy.blogspot.com/
March 29th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Even if it doesn’t make a full salad everyday, why not try and use it to add to some you have bought from the store. Who know, your salad may end up a happy head of lettuce and you will be a happy eater too!
Last summer we had lettuce comming out of our ears and I planted 6 plants at a time. We ate well as a family of 5. I think we had salad every dinner.
Leave a Comment