Want to grow your own lettuce but don’t have any space outdoors? No problem. Lettuce are just one of those vegetables that you can easily grow indoors. In fact, growing vegetables indoors for own consumption is one of the most economical way of making sure you’re eating high quality produce even if you don’t have much space around.
Lettuce are one of the vegetables that’s widely grown by individual growers these days. That’s pretty much due to the fact that lettuce is one of the healthiest vegetable. It’s packed with a healthy portion of vitamins and antioxidants. Plus, it very much a staple for anyone who loves to prepare and eat salads.
As much as it is easy to grow and harvest lettuce, there are still a couple of things you need to keep in mind during the entire process of preparation until harvest of lettuce. Here are some of those:
Preparation:
If you are planning to grow lettuce indoors then you’d have to prepare the containers or grow boxes where you will sow the seeds. A good container for this purpose are those clamshell boxes used by supermarket to display lettuce and other fresh fruits and vegetables. Of course, you can use other boxes just as long as it has a depth of at least 10 inches. You would need to make a couple of gashes on the bottom potion of the box to allow the flow of water.
After obtaining the box, you need to prepare the soil you are going to use. To expect high quality produce, you need to use suitable soil as well. A good mix would include humus or potting soil, peat, perlite and vermiculite. Place an equal mix of those in your container.
Sowing:
When everything is already prepared, you can plant the seeds 1/8 of an inch deep. After which, you need to cover it gently with the soil mix and spray lightly with water.
Germination would take place in about one or two weeks after planting. After that, you need to thin out the seedlings in order to make room for the growing lettuce. I strongly suggest you take out the smaller ones to give some space for the stronger seedlings to grow. You also have the option of transplanting those into other containers if you like.
Care:
Addition of fertilizers rich in nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus every two weeks is recommended. Furthermore, you also need to water the lettuce regularly to keep the soil moist but don’t overdo it so as to make it wet.
Light is also one of the factor very much needed by the lettuce. You have to have the growing lettuce exposed to light for at least 10 hours in order to produce lush and high quality lettuce. But, you also need to ensure that the temperature don’t grow too high. Lettuce need a cool environment for its proper growth.
The Author:
StartaGarden