A few weeks ago, I attended a workshop on indoor salad gardening. I initially thought it was going to be about growing sprouts in jars (which we already do) but it was instead a different concept of soil sprouts. Surprisingly there is enough volume for the sprouts to BE the salad, instead of just the stuff you put on top. Just chop the plants off about 1/2 inch up from the soil, and cut into pieces.

Basic process is this: every morning I soak about a tablespoon of the following seeds- buckwheat, sunflower, pea and radish. Around dinner I plant each of these into disposable 3 x 5 aluminum bread pans with dirt and cover them with wet newspaper (to help germination). I put them in a box for 4 days- this makes the stems long, then when the sprouts are about an inch or so long, they come out to green up. I have a south facing window, but the originator of the method says that any window is fine. Total time to harvest is 7-11 days. I've been experimenting with a seed tray warming mat under the box and things are coming up faster. I have a rack (that I used for seed flats in the spring) where I keep all the plants on.

You only add a few tablespoons of water each day, so you don't need drainage holes. Makes them easier to move around etc since they are self contained. I reuse the bread pans and compost the roots and dirt from each batch.

I've been enjoying daily (sometimes twice daily) salads with this method for a couple of weeks now. Its really good to get that vibrancy in my food this time of year, as well as get my gardening fix in.

The workshop guy has a book which I bought, but he freely shares the basic information at http://thedailygardener.com/