Are you looking for way to grown your own salad crops, or fresh herbs? But perhaps you are limited on space? I’ve found a quick and easy way to make an indoor salad garden, which takes up minimal space.
I’m going to show you how to make an indoor salad garden from an old cot side. It’s super easy and doesn’t need any tools. We chose to put ours in our kitchen, but you could also lean this vertical salad garden against a fence outside, or in a lean-to. I think it looks so nice beneath my organisation station, what do you think? Read on to discover how to make your own indoor salad garden.
What You’ll Need to Make an Indoor Salad Garden from an Old Cot Side
This was such a quick and easy DIY project, with no tools needed, yay! I have been hoarding the sides of the girls’ old cot bed for years, knowing they would come in handy. After we turned the cot bed into a toddler bed for for Thea, it broke a bit so couldn’t go back to being a cot bed again. I was so happy to have hit on this idea to give the sides a new lease of life (and justify my years of hoarding). And you can find out what we did with the other side of the cot here. If you don’t happen to have an old cot side, you could also use an old ladder.
What you’ll need to make an indoor salad garden from an old cot side:
- An old cot side. Ours is a cot bed, but a cot would be just fine but a little smaller. Or find an old ladder.
- Containers with a hanger, ours are the VARIERA containers from IKEA, which were ยฃ4 each for the smaller ones and ยฃ6 each for the larger ones
- Broken crockery
- Compost
- Herbs and salad – we got ours ready-grown from our local garden centre but you could try seeds if you prefer
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How to Make an Indoor Salad Garden from an Old Cot Side or Ladder
- Find a sunny spot in your house and lean the cot side up against it. You could fix your cot side to the wall but we may move ours so we have leaned it up like a ladder. It’s pretty heavy now it has all that compost in it, so isn’t likely to fall over.
- Carefully break up some old pots or cups and scatter them on the bottoms of your containers. This will help with drainage, to make sure your plants don’t get waterlogged. If you wanted to have your salad garden outside, you would need to drill holes in the bottom of each container for drainage.
- Add compost on top, to around a third of the capacity – you don’t want them to get too heavy by over filling.
- Gently remove your herbs and salads from the pots they came in, and add to the containers, adding more compost around them until they are roughly level.
Which Herbs to Plant in Your Indoor Salad Garden
There are loads of things you could plant in your indoor salad garden. I chose mint, basil, parsley, thyme and a couple of varieties of lettuce. We have a huge rosemary bush in our garden so didn’t need to grow more of that. We’re trying our hand at trailing strawberries on the bottom layer – finger’s crossed they work.
Other plants that would work well for an indoor edible garden are trailing cherry tomatoes and spinach. We have got some spinach seeds to plant up as we couldn’t find any ready-grown at the garden centre.
So now we have our indoor salad garden, I can’t wait to use the salad and herbs in my cooking. Fresh herbs are so much nicer than dried ones, don’t you think? If you like my ideas for how to make an indoor salad garden, why not Pin this for later?
Great tutorial and really nice looking indoor garden!
I might create my own based on your idea ๐
Thank you so much Niels, I hope you make your own, it’s so lovely to have fresh herbs and salad!
Becky this is SO clever, I would never come up with an idea like this. It looks so stylish too, I love it X #HomeEtc
Ah thanks so much Lins xx
This is SUCH an amazing idea!!!!! BRILLIANT Becky! You clever thing!! ๐ Just like a living wall โ I love it!! Thanks so much for linking up and sharing on #HomeEtc
What a brilliant idea, I love it, I shall have to do something similar for sure xx
Thanks so much, we have moved it outside as weโre on holiday and canโt water it, itโll be interesting to see how much survives! Xx
A fantastic up-cyling project. Love it, super well done!!
Thanks so much Mary, I’m so happy to have found a use for it! xx
This is a brilliant idea!!! Looks great ๐
Thank you so much xx
Wow so glad I saw this before I put our cot on eBay!
Ha ha brilliant! I have used the other side as an accessories storage rack for the girls, but also seen you can use them as hinge down clothes airers too – so many possibilities xx
A great idea for bringing the outside in if you don’t have much space. What a treat to be able to pick your fresh herbs in the kitchen as you are cooking too!
I put fresh basil in the pasta sauce tonight, itโs lovely! Xx
Such a fabulous idea, I love it!! It reminds me when I reused my daughters cot side to hang large sheets of tissue paper in my florist shop many years ago. x
Ah itโs perfect for that! I love saving things from the skip! Xx
What a fantastic idea! I’d never have thought to reuse a cot bed in this way! I still have our daughter’s stored in the loft too.I wonder if my husband would go for this?!
Thanks Stacey, we used the other half with hooks as an accessory store for the girls, also works well! Iโve seen on Pinterest people use them as pull down washing airers, lots of uses! Xx
this is absolute genius idea hun !! simple but so effective xx i love it x
Thanks so much Pati, Iโm really pleased with it xx
Thatโs such a great idea!!! Iโll definitely save this for when I do my kitchen makeover! x
Ah thanks Danielle, just hoping I can keep them alive now xx
Love the idea of an indoor salad garden. I have an indoor herb garden but maybe I need to upgrade to salad. Good use of an old cot too.
Thank you Claire, I was so happy to have found a use for it after all these years! Xx
Such a great idea, love it!
Thanks so much Meera, I’m so happy with it! x