Growing Romaine Lettuce in Water is another fun experiment with growing food from scraps that would have been discarded! I had fun trying this, and I made a tasty salad from the freshly-picked Romaine!

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Growing Romaine Lettuce in Water four image collage.

A while back I shared Tips for Growing Green Onions, and I heard from quite a few people who had fun experimenting with that. And I enjoy watching things grow and love getting free food, so I thought it would be fun to try Growing Romaine Lettuce in Water for my next kitchen gardening experiment!

For a few years I heard you could grow Romaine in water, similar to the method I use to grow the green onions. I hadn’t seen photos of it, but I decided just to experiment and see what happened! And as you can see from the photo above, it was definitely a success and watching it grow was a lot of fun. This would be fun to do with kids, and I bet they’ll enjoy be more interested in growing lettuce than green onions!

I ate that first batch of Romaine that I grew in a crisp green salad with half a can of tuna and some Ranch Dressing, and it was just enough Romaine for a tasty lunch for one. Keep reading for more details about growing some Romaine Lettuce yourself!


Collage photo of preparing romaine lettuce to grow in water.

Preparing the Lettuce to Grow Romaine Lettuce in Water:

  1. I cut the Romaine so I was leaving just enough of the root end that it would stick up above the top of the glass. Leaving that long of a stem may not have been absolutely necessary, but I don’t usually eat that very bottom part of the Romaine head anyway.
  2. I put the stalk of Romaine in a short glass with about 1 1 /2 inches of water.
  3. I put it in a sunny window, which I figured would help it grow. 

Growing Romaine Lettuce in Water:

  1. I changed the water and then took a photo of how much the Romaine had grown every two days. 
  2. Even by day two you could see it was going to grow!
  3. By day six the Romaine was sticking up a couple of inches.
  4. By day twelve I had bushy leaves of Romaine sticking up about six inches.
  5. I continued growing the Romaine for a total of twenty days, but you can see by the photos that the growth wasn’t significant for the last few times I took photos.
  6. After about two weeks the leaves didn’t fill out much more and instead the stems just kept getting longer, so I’m thinking that’s the time to stop and enjoy the Romaine.
  7. I’m already growing my second crop of Romaine Lettuce, and it seems like something that’s easy to do every time you chop up a head of lettuce to make a salad!
  8. I’m thinking it would be fun to try other types of leafy lettuce too, although Romaine is the lettuce I buy most regularly.

Ten Favorite Recipes that use Romaine Lettuce:

What vegetables or herbs have you grown on the counter?

Have you experimented with growing green onions, Romaine Lettuce, or any other vegetables or herbs on the counter? Tell us what you’ve tried in the comments!

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