Growing Microgreens in a Lettuce Container

When the Christmas tree comes down, the Aerogarden goes up!

A couple years ago, I bought an Aerogarden to grow food inside during the cold winter months and, mostly, to cheer myself up during the bleak January and February months when the snow outside starts getting tiresome and the desire to see pavement again takes over. And, let's face it, the Aerogarden lights act as sort of a light therapy even though they are a weird, alien hue.

This year, I'll be adding something new to the mix. I'm going to try growing microgreens in an old lettuce container. I looked into growing microgreens for sale last spring when I was running my farmstand. Long-story short... trying to keep vegetables from wilting at the farmstand and/or keeping them in a cooler just resulted in a lot of vegetables I had to throw away. So I just stuck with baked goods. 

Anyhoo, I bought some microgreens seeds to play around with but never used (I've got another packet hiding around here somewhere). What better time but the present! My plan is to use one of those plastic lettuce containers with the lid as a little greenhouse to get things started. I may even bust out my seed warming mat for good luck. I'll use a seed starting mix and keep it moist until it sprouts, and then harvest when they are about 2 inches tall.

For those of you who saw my posts on the indoor mushroom growing thing a few winters ago, let's hope it goes better. What happened with the shiitakes, you ask? Well, I quickly learned no one in our house likes shiitakes. A crime, I know! But I, personally, just couldn't force myself to eat that many and didn't want to go through the trouble to dehydrate them for later use when no one likes them. So they ended up growing something... unnatural. Well, probably natural in the fungus world, but not something I wanted to eat. Not that I wanted to eat them in the first place. But, I did produce a ton.

Which is to say - I'm hoping to not experience some extra weird growths with the microgreens! I'll do a follow-up post once I've run this experiment. And, I'll post on how my Aerogarden is doing, what I like to grow and what successfully grows. Because, if history repeats itself, I'll have a bumper crop there as well.

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Here are the Aerogarden and other stuffs I'm using:

Aerogarden Bounty Basic - Indoor Garden with LED Grow Light

Aerogarden Mixed Lettuce Seed Pods
Aerogarden Pesto Basil Seed Pod Kit (the basil grows like crazy)

Vivosun Durable Waterproof Seedling Heat Mat - These work like a charm (I have 5 of them for my seed starting rack)