Budget Saver - how to grow lettuce at home

If you can find lettuce in the grocery store these days, it's pricy.  Our local lettuce is $9.99 a head.  But as they say, the heart of the problem lies the seed of the solution.  What a great opportunity to get the word out about how cool growing food is.

I bet we could brainstorm some ideas that someone could grow their own lettuce at home and set up a system for less than 10 bucks.  Something that anyone could do even if they don't have land.

Can you help me brainstorm how to battle the lettuce lunacy?  

I've almost never grown lettuce so I don't really know where to start.

Lettuce grows great in a hydroponic setup. In my area, it’s the most reliable way to grow lettuce! Kratky is very simple . https://www.indoorvegetablegrower.com/kratky-lettuce-kratky-method-hydroponic-system-diy/

Shawn Foster wrote:Lettuce grows great in a hydroponic setup. In my area, it’s the most reliable way to grow lettuce! Kratky is very simple . https://www.indoorvegetablegrower.com/kratky-lettuce-kratky-method-hydroponic-system-diy/

very cool.

can the whole system be set up for under ten bucks?  

I have grown lettuce as an experiment from the leftover core of lettuce from the grocery store.

Lettuce is really easy to grow from seed and with prices like that more folks would be prudent to do so.

Choosing the right lettuce to grow, I would suggest picking the kind you like to eat.

I really only like iceberg lettuce though I enjoy a salad made of all sorts of different lettuce like adding romaine.

I have grown several different varieties, including the romaine mentioned above.

I have always wanted to try buttercrunch lettuce.

I bet lettuce would also make good microgreens that could be grown indoors:

https://permies.com/t/149878/Growing-Microgreens-Indoors-Winter-Tips

r ranson wrote:

very cool.

can the whole system be set up for under ten bucks?  

With a little creativity, yes. Cover the outside of one or more canning jars with foil, paper and tape, or paint. Basically, as long as it holds a decent quantity of water, is opaque or covered to keep the light out so you don’t end up with an algae farm, and has an opening that is it can be made sufficiently narrow to hold the weight of the cup, you’re in business.  Make a cup to hold the plant by cutting long, wide slits in a yogurt cup. Growing medium can be some clean, small gravel. Coconut coir works great, too, if you have that somewhere. Or cut up loofa sponges. Light can be supplied through a good window or even just a basic lamp.

So far, cost is $0. Cool.

The one off-premises input you need for hydroponics is nutrient solution. It needs to be specific to hydroponic grows, especially with Kratky—the plant is always in the solution, so an imbalance can kill it.  To be under $10, look for small containers of it or split a larger one with someone (or someones). They’re sold in concentrates and it takes very little per container.

The other sticky bit that may incur a cost is starting seeds. Gravel won’t work for that purpose, though it works just fine for the technique that Anne mentioned in restarting from the cut stalk if you have the right type of lettuce. (Iceberg, no, romaine, butter, and “red leaf” or “green leaf” yes.) Coconut coir can work, but it’s a bit fiddly to keep the seeds from dropping out before they have a chance to germinate. I’ve used rock wool and compressed hydroponic “sponges” successfully, but it doesn’t fit into the under-$10 category unless you split a package with someone. There are  other materials that will work with seeds, and perhaps someone else can comment on those.

I currently do lettuce in a second-hand  Aerogarden I picked up from someone on Facebook Marketplace for $20. Bought a liter of nutrient solution a few years ago and I’ve used maybe a quarter of it.   This system works really well for me.

The first time I grew lettuce I just threw a bunch of mixed lettuce seeds on a freshly turned raised bed and I got more lettuce then my family and neighbors could eat.

The trick to growing your own is that you can harvest a few outer leaves from several heads rather than harvest a whole individual head m that way you can take just what you need whenever you need it. No more wilted lettuce in the fridge.

Lettuces are trivial for some people, damn hard for others. Count me on the second group.

However, microgreens should work for everyone, everywhere, if you like the taste and as long as you are not freezing in your house. Even if you dislike the flavour, it's a source for fresh vitamins in case they become hard to find.

Abraham Palma wrote:Lettuces are trivial for some people, damn hard for others. Count me on the second group.

To be fair, the second and third time I tried to grow lettuce it failed terrifically.

But the 4th time, this time! It is fantastic. Perfect even. I think I may have outdone myself. I planted completely differently this time around too.

The first time was broadcast on top of the soil on newly turned beds. The second time I planted out poorly grown, leggy, homegrown starts and they continued to grow poorly and leggy, but I saved seed from them. The third time I broadcast into multisown polycultures and they grew well but were outcompeted by weeds and other plants because I failed to thin them.

This time around, my 4th try, I grew GOOD, stout starts and planted them out well in good spacing for them to grow into in a variety of spaces intermixed with other vegetables in my beds. They are all growing beautifully and are ready for a first cropping soon.

Some of the other key factors for my success this time were growing the starts in sufficient sunlight and planting them out into sufficiently sunny beds. Also keeping them free of competition. Each plant has enough room to grow. I initially sowed 3-4 seeds in each cell of a module, then thinned as they came up. Then when they developed the first 4 or so true leaves I transplanted them into larger individual pots. I let them grow up until they seemed to be overflowing from their pots, then planted them out as I found room for them in my garden beds.

The first time around, with the broadcast method, I had very very rich home-made compost soil medium, and something like 7-8 lettuce plants growing per square foot. They were DENSE. I harvested them like crazy, but I couldn't keep up and eventually the snails and other bugs got the stragglers. I have better hopes for this round. They're easier to access, crop from, and are all growing evenly.

Sorry if I oversimplified my lettuce adventures in my first post.

I'm happy to talk about everything about growing lettuce because it is such a valuable crop to grow in your home garden, even if a head of lettuce costs a sane amount of money at the market.

I don't grow lettuce indoors. My 'winter lettuce' exists of winter hardy green plants (lamb's lettuce, miner's lettuce, etc.). Because our winters are not very cold, those small green leaves grow here during the winter.
I do grow sprouts or microgreens indoors.

It's very possible to grow lettuce indoors just like you would start any plant from seed.  If you already have grow lights and potting mix and containers to grow transplants for your spring garden, then it's really easy to re-purpose those to grow lettuce in the winter.  If you don't have those things then it would take more than $10 to get started.  I don't think that it would be successful to grow lettuce indoors without an extra light.  The winter sunlight filtering through a window is not strong enough to grow nice healthy lettuce leaves.

I already have parsley and basil growing indoors this winter.  Thanks for the little reminder to get some lettuce seeds going as well!

Thanks for the ideas here everyone: very motivating!
The under $10 requirement got me thinking about Douglas Alpenstock’s thread How Thermal Mass can Make you Money!
Maybe the mass of the water or pot + soil saving on indoor heating bills over time could help offset the costs involved in growing the lettuce. I have a large dark brown clay pot (dark colors absorb more heat than light colors) near a sunny SE facing window that weighs about 60 lbs empty. When filled with 1 cubic foot of sand (100 lbs) plus 1.5 cubic foot of potting soil (~30 lbs) plus water (~8 lbs per gallon) that pot offers well over 200 lbs in bonus thermal mass inside my home. I grow arugula (started from seeds) in that pot and harvest leaves all winter to use as lettuce and cook in any recipe that calls for spinach. For free nutrition, I use sun-sterilized worm castings as top dressing / fertilizer.
Depending on where a person lives and how much they spend on heat, a large sun-absorbing pot filled with thermal mass may pay for materials eventually. Any of the materials could be recycled or repurposed rather than purchased, in which case the energy savings could be used for other purposes.

Lettuce handles frost well - especially mesclun mixes.

We have some growing in an old plastic kiddy pool filled with rough unfinished compost that I topped with purchased soil, then covered with the top of a glass outdoor table. It's gone through -10C, and sat with snow on it for several days.

I tend to grow leaf style lettuce. I think it tastes better, and the head-style or romaine lettuce dont produce well for me.  I do find I need to provide decent compost. Lettuce in my heavy soil doesn't produce very well.

One thing I learned this year is to actually get around to thinning it! Grows much larger, more satisfying to pick leaves. I eat the thinnings in early salads. I also find I need to replant every 3-4 weeks, more frequently as I gets hotter.

Grown indoors, it needs too much light for me to have had much success with it.

Someone could imitate my setup with a plastic tub and an old window, or, I suppose, a piece of thick clear plastic.  

I have grown the grocery store lettuce core on my washing machine which is about four feet from my south-facing window so it is possible to grow lettuce indoors.

Having grow lights would be an added benefit.

Of course, I am in Sunny Texas and not some cloudy place.

I like the idea of mass so having an RMH (Rocket Mass Heater) with lettuce growing near might be lovely.

I found this video where someone plants lettuce Kratky style in an old milk carton with a bit of net from a nectarine bag. And one of those plastic envelopes that Amazon sends things in.

Smooth Sowthistle is a fair substitute for lettuce, though a bit more bitter. If you've got it growing wild, it can be encouraged by ensuring it can set seed. Be sure to pick he tender smooth sowthistle, rather than the prickly sowthistle, which is much rougher on the palette. The bitterness, probably in common with other members of this group, is sleep-inducing.

Dandelion can also be used, blanched for less bitter, or the broader-leaved, less toothed types are less bitter.
I've once grown real lettuce, in a large (bigger than bucket) pot, set in a large saucer of water ensured topped-up before dusk - as slug barrier. They were grown from received transplants.

Varieties make a big difference. I live in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon where it gets down into the 20s every winter, into the teens about half the years, but seldom below 10, but almost never below 0.

Two varieties that do well here in the winter, even outdoors, are North Pole and Winter Density. If the plants are up and growing before any serious frost they will last all winter and even grow when the temperatures are above freezing (and especially above 40). They will especially start growing again in the early spring.

They are NOT a summer crop as they both bolt to seed in any kind of heat at all.

They grow very well in a cold frame or an unheated greenhouse.

As stated above, many varieties can stand some frost. Right now I have Romaine still in the ground outside and doing well... and we have already seen some nighttime lows in the mid twenties.

This is a small pot grown from seed.  Black seeded Simpson, but we grow Buttercrunch and other loose leaf types as well.  Bring indoors when temps go below freezing or put on a wide shelf by a window to get morning sun and grow it indoors.  Lettuce doesn’t require as many daylight hours or intensity as some crops do.  Trick is in keeping soil moist, and we use humate, worm castings, calcium/phosphorus, pinch of wood ash mixed into native soil, and also add our own blend of trace minerals.  Kelp is good as it has those trace, and we put azomite and some other things in the trace mix as well.  
Total cost.    Pot was 25 cents from a yard sale
                    Soil amendments about $2.00
                    25 cents worth of seed

$2.50 and there are 12 heads of lettuce growing which will be harvested by cutting outside leaves and letting it grow from the center.  When it starts to bolt, I’ll cut it back 2 inches from ground level and it will regrow for a while.  Then it is time to let one go to seed, to mature for saving seed for next time.  Start several pots this way and you’ll always have it, year around.   This picture was taken on Dec. 4th, and freezing at night.  Been down to 18 already, but safe indoors.   It gets down to 5 below zero here some years.  (Southern Appalachian Mountains) Even after the plants are done, recompost the entire potting mix to reuse the soil.  Just keep adding cal/Phos/wood ash and trace to rebuild it.  So that cost will go down as you average it out.  

When you are stocking up on supplies you might not be able to get later, remember to stock up on those soil amendments you will need for growing your food.  

I’ ve grown it outdoors all winter if it is covered with row cover, but in a year when it rains a lot, that can cause damping off and rotting plants.  Some varieties are more cold hardy, and some like Buttercrunch are more heat tolerant.  

Here's how I grow all my produce at home, all year around @7500 feet in the Northern Colorado Rockies. The latest and greatest that can not be beat pertaining to all that is concerning (to date).

Call me old-fashioned, I don't trust hydroponics for the long run. I don't trust dishwashing machines, either, and I don't know a single neighbour who doesn't have one. So that's may be me.

Abraham Palma wrote:Call me old-fashioned, I don't trust hydroponics for the long run. I don't trust dishwashing machines, either, and I don't know a single neighbour who doesn't have one. So that's may be me.

I don't do hydroponics. I'm doing aeroponics.

Edit to add; Here's a link to hundreds of vids concerning same;  https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Tower+Garden

Welcome to Permies, Robert Slatten. I hope that your aeroponics towers serve you well for a long time.

Like Catie, i have found that loose leaf lettuces handle frost very well and even after the plants have been covered in snow, will continue growing.

There is a loose leaf red lettuce that self sows thoughout the community garden, I leave several plants to go to seed each year and when the seedlings pop up, transplant them.

Our house doesn't get enough direct sun for growing lettuce indoors but if I could, would certainly try using recyled plastic bottles to make these SIPS. They could also be made with glass bottles if you have a tile cutter.

r ranson wrote:Can you help me brainstorm how to battle the lettuce lunacy?

Yes! Eat carrots instead. Or coleslaw.

I read (somewhere) that it takes a 5 gallon pail of commercial iceberg lettuce to equal the nutritional value of a large carrot. How true that is I can't objectively say, although I'm inclined to believe it since I think lettuce is pretty much rubbish anyway.

If it's a zombie apocalypse and I need to grow greens inside during winter, it'll be chickweed and quackgrass. They're impossible to kill and every animal I've seen considers them first class salad fixings. My 2c.

For inspiration, see also "Grocery Shopping With Your Middle Finger."
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/23/grocery-shopping-with-your-middle-finger/

When I saw Little Gems in the grocery store for $13 / lb last year, I was like what !  I was already growing most of my own salad greens at that point, but that helped me double down on my resolve!

I take a pretty traditional approach to lettuce and salad greens:  I grow my own healthy starts using my Orta self-watering pots, then plant them out to sunny raised beds with amended soil, 8" - 10" spacing, and watering every 2-3 days when it's not the rainy season.  Because it doesn't get too cold here in Northern CA, my lettuces don't ever freeze.  But because of the low light levels, they don't really grow either between mid-November and mid-January.  For summer, I love the variety Brown Goldring because it bolts the slowest for me.

My Orta pots are admittedly more than the $10 set-up cost, but they make it so that I can actually grow from seed and save money in the long run.  Otherwise I get the watering wrong and lose my starts.  And buying starts can be almost as much as buying the lettuce itself!  (I can tell that many of you on this list are better at seedling tending than I am!).

Now that it's mid-January and the sun is coming back out, I'm going to start myself some Little Gems!

Only a $10 budget from scratch in my cloudy winters wouldn't work. However, we bought the original 4' fluorescent fixture about 30 years ago. We adapted it to take special LED bulbs about 5 years ago, so if you're committed to growing seedlings anyway, and feel you can consider the cost over years, my set-up is pretty cheap.

The pots are salvaged from the side of the road. The dirt is from my garden with some homemade compost mixed in, and usually a few goodies like coir to help keep the moisture even, and crushed eggshell for some minerals. The funny colour of the photo is because of the supposedly plant-friendly LED's.


I used saved seed - a small spotted Romaine type lettuce, so those are healthy spots on the leaves. Mostly I find that if I try to grow large "grocery store" sized produce, I run into trouble like it looking good enough to the deer that they break into the garden, or the slugs decide to multiply in them. I can treat this Romaine lettuce like a leaf lettuce.


Last year, when the weather warmed up, I dug a couple of holes and dropped the mass of lettuce right into the front bed which gave me a few more pickings.
I'm not going to get a bunch of giant salads out of my system, but I do get enough lettuce to add to a sandwich. The plants would really like more sun and so would I!

I'm trying out the Aerogarden seed starting tray and I just transfered my first Little Gem lettuce head to a pot, it's going to go outside soon! I wish I had tried this out earlier in the year when I'd have cooler temps, I'm afraid it will wilt when it warms up. But at least I know it's possible!! I've now got 3 more seeds started!