Adding Greens to Your Diet and "Green" to Your Lifestyle

Eating a diet rich in vegetables is a great way to help stay healthy. Unfortunately, high quality organic vegetables can often be a bit expensive at the grocery store or farmer's market. With just a small amount of space and effort, you can grow your own salad greens and other vegetables at home, even if you don't have a lot of space.

Choosing the Vegetables
It is important to take the preferences of you and your family into consideration when selecting vegetables to grow at home. Lettuce, spinach and other salad greens don't take up a lot of space, and can even be grown indoors under lights during the cold winter months. Salad greens are also a great choice because growing them at home will allow you to enjoy them at the peak of freshness. In fact, you can pick just enough for a single meal, and never experience wilted lettuce leaves again. Lettuce and salad greens are also a great choice for container gardening. Other salad vegetables that work well when grown at home include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, radishes and summer squash.

Home Growing Methods
If you have an outdoor patio which gets enough sunlight, you can grow lettuce and greens by themselves in a large pot, or mix them in with other decorative flowers and vegetable plants to save space. For the sake of safety, be sure to only grow edible plants in the same pots along with your vegetables. Combining lettuce in pots with tomatoes and peppers can add a lot of beauty to your patio, in addition to providing fresh vegetables for your salad.

You can also grow vegetables in a backyard garden, but be sure to provide some protection. A small fence will ward off rabbits, groundhogs and other animals. Many vegetables can also be grown successfully indoors, as long as adequate lighting is provided. Lettuce, spinach and other leafy greens are easy to grow under a simple fluorescent light fixture. Suspending one of these light fixtures in the basement over a work table is all you will need to grow a steady supply of greens.

Keeping Your Vegetable Crops Watered and Fertilized
When caring for your vegetables, make sure they receive an adequate amount of light, water and nutrients. If you are growing plants in outdoor containers, be sure the containers are large enough so that the soil will not dry out during the day. Pots that have good drainage are also important to prevent overwatering, especially if the pots are located in an area that can receive natural rainfall. Water them whenever the soil begins to feel dry. Natural fertilizers such as compost, manure, and fish emulsion can be used to provide your vegetables with nutrients, while maintaining their organic status.

Harvest and Enjoy
Lettuce and other salad greens grow quickly and can be harvested on a continuing basis simply by pinching off the leaves as needed. Other plants such as tomatoes and peppers should be harvested on a regular basis to encourage the plants to produce more vegetables.

With a small amount of care, your plants will provide you with salad ingredients all season.