Looking for an Easy Holiday Gift to DIY? Create a Salad Garden

Got a salad lover in your life? For less than $75, you can make them their very own salad heaven so they can grow their own lettuce plants and level up their salad game.

Lettuce plants are easy to grow, thrive in cool weather, and will provide your gift recipient with harvests after harvests. This is literally the gift that keeps on giving.

Plus, by growing in these inexpensive containers, they can also move their garden indoors when the temps drop too low. 

Without further ado, here are the four things you need to create a DIY salad garden.

grab a natural container with 6” depth and good drainage

Use a container that’s free of any chemicals that might leach into the garden’s soil. Ideal materials include cedar, steel, and terra cotta clay. Look for words like "food grade" and "untreated" to ensure you're using the most natural of materials for these organic salad greens.

Lettuce plants have shallow roots, so your container only needs to be 6 inches deep. I recommend going for one that's at least a foot wide so that you can plant several different types of lettuce in one container.

Also, be sure the container allows water to drain quickly so that the lettuce plants don’t turn soggy. If there aren't any drainage holes, you'll need to drill your own (about one every square foot or so). Lettuce plants really dislike sitting in extra water.

Here are a couple of my favorite containers and more details on the different types of containers you can choose from.

fill your container with a mix of soil and compost

Soil is the most important element in the salad garden, but most of us don’t have great soil in our backyard.

That means it's best to mix your own using soil and organic compost (lettuce plants love compost... In fact, if you only have organic compost lying around, the lettuce plants would be perfectly happy growing in this nutrient-dense medium). Compost provides the nitrogen they need to grow lots of green leaves. 

Before you add the soil mix, fit a landscape cloth or weed barrier cloth into the bottom of the container to prevent the soil from leaking out of the drainage holes every time your giftee waters.

sow high-quality lettuce seeds or organic starter plants

Salad greens are easy to start from seed. The quality, however, of these tiny seeds makes a huge difference, which is why it's important to select seeds from heirloom, organic, and non-GMO companies. If you can find seed companies that grow responsibly near you, even better!

Alternatively, you could fill the container with organically grown starter plants from a local nursery or farmers' market.

My favorite lettuce types to grow as cut-and-come-again plants are romaine, buttercrunch, spinach, and Rocky Top Lettuce Mix. Arugula is a great plant for almost all weather conditions. Make sure to give your seeds or new transfers a good watering in to welcome them.

Add plant labels so your lucky gift recipient knows what delicious leafy greens they'll soon be tossing into their salads.

write your salad garden recipient some care instructions

Your lucky giftee should be instructed to keep their salad garden in a spot that receives at least four hours of sunlight. During these colder months, they can let their salad garden get more hours of light because the sun is further away and the temperatures are lower.

Since lettuce plants love water, they should check the water moisture level every day to be sure the soil isn't dry (or too wet).

Find full instructions on how to harvest cut-and-come-again lettuce.

Instead of care instructions, you could print a copy of our Salad Garden Guide Ebook.

Who knows? Maybe after you've given them their own salad garden and they get a taste for that garden-fresh flavor, they'll be ready to expand into a raised bed kitchen garden soon!

Thanks for helping me bring back the garden this holiday season. I hope your gift recipient is in salad garden heaven!