Salad Bar Gardening

[Hudson_WY]

Here's an idea, that is working for us that we wanted to share. Our GH is too hot for salad veggies and bending over in the garden isn't ideal. So after looking at raised bed kits from different garden suppliers we thought, "We can do that." We visited a local manufacturer that makes plastic burial vaults for caskets. They had several damaged vaults and let us have a few damaged vaults for free. We cut the vault down to a height of 18" and drilled holes for drainage. We had some used and left over building materials from other projects so the bed was built at no extra cost. The photos tell the rest of the story. We located the raised bed that we call our "Salad Bar," on the east side of our GH where it gets lots of morning sun but not the hot west sun. We made just one to see how salad veggies would grow and now we're going to make a couple more to make extra growing space.

[SQWIBB]

Wow, that would make a fantastic wicking bed!

[Carriehelene]

Ingenious! And you even made it look attractive. Great job!

[PNW_D]

that puts a new spin on family plot

raised beds are the way to go

[biscuitridge]

Wow! Now just bring it inside for the winter and hang some LED lights above it, you would have a lot of lettuce all winter long. I have an 22" x 50" bed indoors and we harvested over 42lbs of lettuce this winter from it.

[SQWIBB]

Originally Posted by biscuitridge

Wow! Now just bring it inside for the winter and hang some LED lights above it, you would have a lot of lettuce all winter long. I have an 22" x 50" bed indoors and we harvested over 42lbs of lettuce this winter from it.

I would love to see your setup, I grew lettuce this winter in a 10 gallon Rubbermaid with success, would liked to double that.

[biscuitridge]

Originally Posted by SQWIBB

I would love to see your setup, I grew lettuce this winter in a 10 gallon Rubbermaid with success, would liked to double that.

Sqwibb- I was going to document the whole process , but as usual good intentions didn't lead to anything, but I did record how many grams of lettuce that we ate each day, we started harvesting 30 days after planting and then continued for 5 months and 1 week , with a total of 46.87 lbs of lettuce. We the 3 of us had a huge salad that pretty much covered a large dinner plate every day,then it tapered off towards the end. Had an automatic watering system that watered whenever it needed it, used a soil moisture sensor to tell it when to water and how much to water, and of course LED lighting on a timer. The cost of production was quite a bit less than buying organic lettuce in the store, plus it was much tastier and tenderer than store bought lettuce. Had a slight problem with fungus nats , but I fixed that by going out to the blueberry patch and getting a little of the rich soil that had good biology any added it around the lettuce, that really knocked them. Sorry for hijacking this thread.

[SQWIBB]

My apologies too for highjacking but with one more question, full harvest or "cut and come again" harvesting, I'm guessing the latter.

[biscuitridge]

Cut and come again. If anybody is interested in the setup I’d be glad to post pictures when I start it up again this fall.

[Hudson_WY]

Yes - please share your setup! Thanks!

[biscuitridge]

Can you make 2units out of each vault, it looks like it would work from what I see in the picture. How deep is it, it looks deeper than what I use, I think mine is 8" deep.

[greenthumbomaha]

Great idea! I may repurpose two empty earthboxes sitting in my basement to indoor salad bars. I have the large metal storage rack from Costco in front of a sunny window and lights at the ready. Would the earthbox need additional modifcation?
What soil and fertilizer? Supplemental minerals for nutrition in soilless mixes?

- Lisa

[Hudson_WY]

Originally Posted by biscuitridge

Can you make 2units out of each vault, it looks like it would work from what I see in the picture. How deep is it, it looks deeper than what I use, I think mine is 8" deep.

I cut the vault to 18” In height - mostly because it had a big crack that stopped at 18” from the bottom. The vault is 42” deep but is open on one side so if you made two out of one vault - one of them would not have a bottom.

[Hudson_WY]

[QUOTE=greenthumbomaha;757244]Great idea! I may repurpose two empty earthboxes sitting in my basement to indoor salad bars. I have the large metal storage rack from Costco in front of a sunny window and lights at the ready. Would the earthbox need additional modifcation? Post some photos To show us what you are thinking, if you like.

What soil and fertilizer? Supplemental minerals for nutrition in soilless mixes?
I added compost, vermiculite, potting soil and peat moss to about 25% top soil. I always fertilizer with a 12-15-15 Garden Fertilizer.

[biscuitridge]

Doesn’t the vault have a lid, couldn’t you fasten the lid in place so that would be the bottom of the second half, it looks like from the photo that it is a complete inclosure or am I not seeing correctly. As far as fertilizer goes for indoor growing, never use garden soil, always use a soiless mix, I’ll post more about what I do this fall, when I start up my indoor lettuce system.