Help me grow greens indoors

December 11, 2023 10:46 AM

Can you point me to good information or give good advice for growing greens on my countertop in my kitchen? I want to start incorporating more dark leafy greens in my meals. When I look into how to start, I'm overwhelmed with the options.

Here's what I do want: 1+ serving per day of dark leafy greens.
Here's what I don't want but will if it's really the best way: a subscription model where I have to pay for special seeds in special media to go in a special system.

I really just want to grow greens, harvest a serving or two each day and have it handy in the kitchen. I don't know if I want microgreens? baby greens? or not - I wasn't thinking about those, but that seems to be what a lot of people grow in their kitchens.

If you grow greens in your kitchen, how do you do it and what resources do you recommend?

posted by banjonaut to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

Best answer: I don't think you're going to be able to produce one serving a day on a constant basis, unless it's some combination of a very large kitchen and a very small serving.

And, yes, the best bet is probably microgreens (so not leafy in the usual sense, if in the literal one).

The ever-enthusiastic Growing Your Own Greens on microgreens indoors.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:57 AM on December 11, 2023 [6 favorites]

A stack of microgreens trays under lights seems most likely to me. There are other sprouts, eg pea sprouts.

A serving a day… four spinach leaves? Spinach growing well is 25-35 days to full size, you can fit 5 plants in a square foot or maybe 9 because you’re clipping off the leaves as soon as the plants touch each other, and (informed estimate) I think you can take three leaves off a plant every four days
while they’re flourishing. I don’t know how long you can keep them flourishing indoors.

Even if you don’t get a serving a day, truly fresh veg in the winter are a delight. If you use full spectrum lights you lose some energy efficiency unless they’re lights you’re near, in which case it’s a lovely thing to look at.
posted by clew at 11:20 AM on December 11, 2023

As a person who grows herbs in my kitchen, I'd say you really have to plant quite a lot to be able to get one serving a day, so what if you switched your mode to purchasing your dark leafy greens + growing a complementary item like sprouts or herbs?
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:39 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Disclaimer: I don't use this method; I don't grow greens in my kitchen. I just read this book once. But it seems like it might address your interest: Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening by Peter Burke. I picked it up from the library. It's a no grown light setup without anything too fancy.
posted by carrioncomfort at 11:39 AM on December 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

I scratch this itch by growing sprouts. Other things that have worked in the past are jalapeno and habanero peppers, cherry tomatoes, garlic scapes, and green onions (you can use everything but the bottom 3-4cm of a green onion and put that in water and it will grow more green onion for you. It takes a bit of time but not too much.).
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:02 PM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

A serving of leafy greens is roughly 80g, so you're looking to produce more than a pound of leafy greens in your kitchen every week. That's a lot!

I sometimes grow some salad greens indoors and can tell you this will be difficult. I find I can get a few small servings per week (maybe half a pound) from an area of about six square feet with 200W of grow light LEDs. You probably will want a dedicated shelf so you can start seeds on one level and grow plants on one or two others. A shelf also makes it easier to set up a powerful grow light and adjust the height as needed. This isn't a countertop project and you should expect to spend hundreds of dollars to get started.
posted by ssg at 12:16 PM on December 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

Here's Year Round Salad Gardening, via the Internet Archive.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:33 PM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

banjonaut, I also want to do that and am also overwhelmed. Apologies for not answering your question directly. I just wanted to note that until I figure it out, I am buying, and eating, frozen spinach because it can be adding to nearly anything else I am eating and it's there whenever I want it. Watching this thread with interest.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:39 PM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

I've successfully grown Swiss chard indoors, but it was slooooow. Unless you have a lot of room to do staggered planting of a couple dozen plants, you aren't going to grow enough of this or any other green to have 1+ servings a day.

The only way I have been getting fresh greens daily without opening the fridge is through buying living lettuce and putting their roots into bowls of water. It's not cheap (about $2.50/head in Toronto), and my usual options aren't dark greens (Boston and red leaf lettuce), but everything was fresh and crunchy and nothing got wasted to fridge wilt.

Do any grocers near you offer rooted chard or kale or anything else with a bit more nutritional punch?
posted by maudlin at 1:58 PM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I sprouted microgreens in a south-facing window in my house without special lights in the winter in Oregon a few years ago. I used two or three shelves in the window (I actually got one of those inexpensive shelf units that can fit over the top of a toilet in the bathroom to maximize window-level shelving). For containers, I used leftover plastic takeout containers, basically large clear clamshell containers (I may have kept them closed to keep the moisture in, so they functioned as mini greenhouses). They weren't attractive, but they were cheap and I saved them when I had grocery items in them. As a growing medium, I used potting soil made/labeled for for sprouting seeds.

Sometimes the roots would take up all the growing medium and needed to be replenished between sprouts. The other thing is that you want to start sprouts a few days apart to have a consistently-available supply. And I used vegetable seeds and sprouted them, things like radish and other veggies easily available in many stores in the spring and available year round in garden supply stores. It was pretty fun to experiment with the different seeds and see which ones I liked.

I didn't get a ton of volume, enough to sprinkle on top of a salad or other veggies. I don't think any of it would have counted as a full serving. It was fun, and felt like a good way to get some different micronutrients. They took regular care, which would be easier in a kitchen you use daily. But if you don't have a big sunny window and a few shelves of space, you might need special lights. This will take a fair amount of space.

Also, I didn't think of microgreens as dark greens. They were typically green, but lighter.

I also grow lots of herbs outside in large containers, and they are pretty robust. I don't know what's ready right now, but I definitely have rosemary, and maybe also oregano, sage, and thyme. I replant every few seasons for the more fragile stuff.

And, finally, this is probably something you've tried, but in case not: the best ways I have found to incorporate more greens into my regular diet are a grab bag of items. I buy a large container of baby spinach at grocery store visits and add it to random recipes for extra greens; I keep frozen spinach and kale in the freezer; I sometimes buy those bags of salad mix with dressing, etc.
posted by bluedaisy at 2:33 PM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

I grow microgreens in my office, using trays and reusable grow medium from On The Grow along with their harvesting knife and growing guides, Miracle-Gro's plant food for aerogarden (there are fancier ferts, but my greens love this stuff and it's cheap - that 3oz lasts a long long time one dribble at a time). I get my seeds from True Leaf Market - broccoli is a favorite, and I pretty much always have a tray of their spicy mix growing - I'm eating some on a sandwich right now. They do have a number of kales, mustard, and mizuna seeds if you specifically want a dark green.

You CAN grow kale indoors, but I mean "one serving" of kale is what you'll get from one plant in six weeks maybe, after putting $300 into growing gear. You can buy a LOT of frozen kale for $300.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:03 PM on December 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

Other things that have worked in the past are jalapeno and habanero peppers, cherry tomatoes,

Please don't eat nightshade greens! All parts except for the fruit are poisonous in peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, physallis, tomatillos, etc.. Yeah, in the quantities we're talking about with sprouts/microgreens will probably not be a problem, but still.
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 1:09 PM on December 12, 2023

Sorry! I meant the actual tomatoes and peppers not any microgreens from the seeds.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:31 PM on December 12, 2023