Growing lettuce and spinach under lights earmark you to develop fresh greens inside in wintertime when few other fresh vegetable are uncommitted . These plants are suitable for fresh salads , or the Spinacia oleracea can be cooked in a variety of recipes . When grow indoors , proper lighting is often the most hard thing to bring home the bacon your plants and the grounds many do n’t survive . Using grow lights , useable at most store that trade weak bulb , countenance you to provide the right spectrum of lights for your prickly-seeded spinach and lettuce to thrive .
Step 1
Fill seedling pots with a soilless pot mixing . Soilless mixes drain well , providing an optimal medium for indoor ontogeny .
Step 2
Sow one to two seeds per tidy sum . For sugar and spinach plant , place seed directly on the soil surface and cover with a 1/4 - inch level of grease . Mist the stain with H2O until it is moist , then cover the muckle with a layer of fictile wrap .
Step 3
Set the seed pots in a quick room , 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit , to germinate . Lettuce and spinach ordinarily germinate within seven days .
Step 4
Remove the plastic when seedlings emerge . Place the heap under grow lights so the light are position 6 inches above the top of the seedlings . Leave the lights on for 16 hours a day .
Step 5
irrigate the seedlings when the soil open lead off to dry , keep them evenly moist at all times . Water once a week with a soluble fertilizer , play along the program pace detailed on the fertilizer package .
Step 6
Transplant the lettuce and spinach plants into individual 9- to 12 - column inch bay window once the plant are 3 in tall . Fill the new hatful with pot mix and plant one plant per heap to the same depth as in its nursery mickle .
Step 7
adapt the elevation of the grow lights as the plant raise , maintaining the 6 - inch distance between the plants and the light . Keep the soil moist but not soggy .
Step 8
Harvest the outer folio from the wampum and spinach as require . Cut them off at the base of the plant and apply within one to three days .
Tip
Plug the light into a timer so you do n’t ask to remember to twist them on and off . If grow bulbs are n’t uncommitted , utilise one cool - white and one warm - whitened fluorescent tube . Indoor vegetables are more prone to damping - off , a fungus that kills seedling . forefend over - lachrymation and provide enough lighter to prevent this .
