How to Grow Greens Indoors All Year Long

We live in a crazy world, and anything that you can do to produce even a small amount of the food you eat can be a great benefit to your food security. Growing greens inside your home is one way to do just that.

You can grow lettuce and other greens inside your home year-round. It is incredibly simple to grow lettuce and other nutritious greens on a shelf or countertop in your home. You need inexpensive full-spectrum lights, quality potting soil, seeds, and water.

In this video, I will show you how we have started to grow greens for our family on a simple set of shelves we purchased at the hardware store, along with some inexpensive shop lights.

You may want to visit this post at The Provident Prepper for better details.

How to Grow Fresh Greens Inside Your Home All Year Long

For more details about our grow light system visit:

Inexpensive Grow Lights to Jump Start Your Garden

We learned a lot about the grow light system from Tom Bartels. You can learn more about his gardening methods in our post,
Biointensive Victory Gardens: Higher Yields with Less Work

Supplies to create your own inexpensive grow lights made from shop lights:

We started with an indoor/outdoor 5-tier wire shelving unit from Home Depot. I liked this one because it would be easy to hang the lights from and I could adjust the shelves to the height that I want them to be.

These are the inexpensive lights that we created to work as grow lights. We purchased the shop lights from Home Depot online so that we didn’t have to go out in the crowd.

You may also be interested in reading more at The Provident Prepper:

Poor Man’s Greenhouse – A Guide to Winter Seed Sowing

Best Strategies for Growing a Reliable Survival Garden

How to Create a Survival Food Forest in Your Own Backyard

Inexpensive Root Cellars: 13 Literally Cool Ideas to Chill With

Chillin’ in Our DIY Buried Freezer Root Cellar

Thanks for being part of the solution!

[rosesmith]

I think you guys did an excellent job showing us step by step on how to do an indoor green harvest. You taught me a great deal. I’m going to try and do this this winter, never grew anything indoors before. Thanks for sharing.

[iwanttobelieve]

I have a dish pan and just said, I’m growing my greens indoors because I have had my greens eaten up outside more times than I can count. This is my solution. Thank you.

[JAYWAY]

I have my 12V grow lights to solar panels directly without a battery. Sun up, lights on. Cheapnez.

[respnse_beats]

A hot nail or soldering iron can be used to make the drainage holes and will prevent any "splitting issues" in your plastic bins as opposed to using a drill.

[biffjohnson]

Fantastic video! Short and FULL of great information! Thank you, Patriots! ❤️

[cordybluejeans]

I am growing greens using the hydroponic method and loving it. Patience is key. Once you are able to harvest you will be able to reharvest every two to three days. It’s like magic. I love Butter-crunch lettuce.

[talkingsticku]

I've been growing indoors under lights for a few years now and have tried different setups. I'm liking the 2 gallon pots from HD with a 50 cent kids plate from WM as the saucer. I can turn the pots as needed, space them as they grow and even stake them with bamboo stakes for continuous harvest. I have the shelf setup in one room but also 4 large windows + lights facing west setup in the main room. Drunken Woman Lettuce is my favorite.... and I get to joke around with my Mom about taking care of the Ladies....! Gotta eat your GREENS! ☀🥬🥗 I also grow Alabama Blue and Georgia Collards indoors. The leaf gets really large and can also be used for wraps. Love 'em so much!

[jenallen]

I am a fan of growing lettuce hydroponically. I grow inside because it bolts super fast in south.

[bearrivermama]

Very thorough!!! Everything looks so neat and tidy! I did this this spring and when I brought a bag of lettuce over to the neighbor she was shocked that I had lettuce ready to eat with snow on the ground 😂😂😂😂😂

[tacsquirrel]

“Thanks for being part of the solution“. Thank you both for showing us the

[hadassahhaman]

Thank you! Wonderful video. As a result of covid I have now been gardening regularly. Self-sufficiency!
Another way to put drainage holes in dollar store tubs is to use heated skewer. I also use wine cork screws to separate top tub from bottom for drainage space. My sister laughs at me because I save everything but....😏 repurpose and recycle!

[lanniearmstrong]

I love using dishpans as containers for lettuces and spinach. They’re so perfect!

[carolynsteele]

Such a great idea to grow greens in winter! I have all the shoplights set up for garden seedlings and just never thought of using them to produce salad!

[elverdad]

Thanks guys! I'm in northern Canada, I'm a vegetarian living in an apartment downtown, the one (expensive) grocery store down town is moving, and due to floods in the South, suddenly we had almost no produce in that grocery store. I don't have a green thumb, but I've been thinking about this for a long time and your video was exactly what I needed. Thank you!

[christinewitherspoon]

I love this too. Thank you for sharing! I was just thinking about growing greens in the house yesterday.

[michaelsherron]

Awesome! Thanks for the step-by-step instructions. 😀

[secret]

Ok you two are making me hungry looking at your greens LOL, great video thanks

[cheyanne]

I love this channel! Thank you again for great tips and ideas. Keep moving forward!💖

[Knutekritt]

Veery nice start to this..Ive been at it a few more years than these folks....I am using epoxy coated regency food grade shelves that are 24 inches deep, 56 inches long and 74 inches tall...I use 6 shelves on there but 5 of these shelves makes this rack equivalent to a 4x10 foot raised bed garden!!! In addition, I hang lights vertically from the ends of 2 racks spread a part a little and these provide amazing amounts of energy for tomaotes, cucumbers etc...I use t5 lights and some T8s....I do grow head lettuce and especially a lot of romaines red and greens....I also made jackets for these so i can put them outside earlier in the year and i use VESTA NOW to heat them a little when needed fabulously!!! Keep up the great work!!

[janice]

I love this and I did this because of you. I am in heaven but really did notice my energy bill go up. So we will try LEDs soon.