11 Of The Best Vegetables To Grow Indoors (2022)
Gardening isn’t limited to outdoor spaces. Bring the garden inside with this list of the best vegetables to grow indoors!
Do you long to grow your own fresh, tasty vegetables but face challenges that prevent you from having an outdoor garden? Using fresh veggies straight from the garden in your recipes will improve the flavor and the quality of all your cooking!
Unfortunately, not everyone has the ability to have large, enviable gardens outdoors. Maybe the climate is too cold or the growing season is too short to grow your favorite vegetables. Or, perhaps you live in an apartment or a home with no room for an outdoor garden.
I have good news: you can still have a garden! You don’t need much space, or a particularly green thumb.
If you have a little space indoors, you can create a fruitful vegetable garden right in the comfort of your home. Here’s what you need to know about creating an indoor garden and my top picks for vegetables to grow indoors.
The Good And The Bad About Vegetables To Grow Indoors
Outdoor gardening presents some challenges, and for some people, those challenges are harder to overcome than others. When that’s the case, I advocate bringing the outdoors in and grow your luscious veggies indoors!
An indoor garden is perfect for anyone who:
- Doesn’t have outdoor gardening space (for example, living in an apartment)
- Has space outdoors but it’s too shady to grow certain vegetables (here are vegetables that grow in the shade)
- Lives in an area where the soil is too unfavorable for growing food
- Has a short growing season (me! me!)
- Lives in a climate that’s really too cold for warm weather crops
- Wants to continue growing fresh, tasty veggies even after winter sets in
You have full control over the growing conditions, so your harvest is much less impacted by the weather or unwanted pests.
In the spirit of full disclosure, there are certainly challenges to growing an indoor garden too! For example, some challenges include:
- Not enough light
- No pollinating insects
- Lack of proper circulation to give your plants enough carbon dioxide or pollinate flowers
- Your crops will require more care
- They will likely not produce as much
However, if you grow the right indoor varieties with the right conditions, you can have a delicious harvest of fresh vegetables at your fingertips all year long! You’ll also have the added benefit of having indoor plants that purify the air!
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Top 11 Vegetables To Grow Indoors
Some vegetables are naturally more suited for growing indoors than others are. Choosing the best plants for indoors is important! In addition to herbs, here are some of the vegetables that I’ve found grow well indoors.
Cherry tomatoes
These warm weather-loving plants grow well indoors if you have a grow light to help them get enough light. Tomatoes usually like to have lots of direct sunlight, which is probably impossible without a grow light.
On the other hand, they’re self-pollinating, so that eliminates the problem of not having pollinating insects at your disposal. When you see blooms, help your plants pollinate by simply shaking the branches holding the flowers. That will help the pollen fall from flower to flower.
Grow cultivars intended for pots that do not grow heavy or tall, like Red Robin or Tiny Tim.
- Light needs: 10+ hours of sunlight
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist
- Harvest: Pick the fruit off the plant once they turn red
Learn More: Check out our post on Growing cherry tomatoes in pots. And our post on how to can whole tomatoes!
Carrots
Whenever I think of growing carrots indoors, I think of those kits for kids where they can grow carrots and other root vegetables in a way that allows them to see the roots form and grow. I always loved that as a kid and was fascinated by watching the process.
Carrots are very easy to grow indoors. They grow well in containers and in general and don’t need a whole lot of care.
To successfully grow carrots indoors, make sure to have a large pot, deeper than what you need for many plants. Carrots also need plenty of sunlight, so place them in a South facing window, and supplement them with a grow light in the morning and evening.
- Light needs: 12+ hours
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist
- Harvest: They’re ready to harvest once carrots start peeking out of the soil
Learn More: How to Grow Carrots in Containers.
Pepper Plants
Pepper plants are perennials in tropical climates, but they can grow very well indoors. They are also self-pollinating.
Help their self-pollination efforts by gently shaking the plant to allow pollen to transfer from flower to flower and support the plants with a tomato cage. They will bear fruit, although it may not be a large harvest.
- Light needs: 10+ hours
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist
- Harvest: When pepper reaches the normal size
For your pepper plants look for cultivars with shorter growing seasons and are container friendly like Lunchbox Peppers. The peppers are smaller, but they are super sweet and grow incredibly well in containers.
- Learn More: See our detailed guide on the best fertilizers to use on your pepper plants for BIG harvests.
- Related: There are many wonderful preserving methods for peppers to help your harvest last through the winter. See our recipes for pickled jalapeno peppers, candied hot peppers, and the easiest methods for dehydrating peppers right in your home. Jalapenos are not as hot as you think, on the Scoville scale, they are relatively mild peppers and make so many wonderful additions to meals!
Salad Greens
Leafy salad greens such as lettuce, kale, spinach, and arugula are cool-weather, shade-tolerant plants that grow well indoors. They even have shallow roots so you can use a shallow container in a compact space.
Give them normal indoor temperatures and you’ll be ready to start harvesting in around 4 weeks.
- Light needs: 12+ hours
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist
- Harvest: Ready to harvest in about 4 weeks once they reach the size you want
My favorite salad green to grow indoors (and outdoors) is Little Gem. It’s a small head, perfect for a salad for one person, and grows well indoors. It also tastes great!
Learn More:
Microgreens
Microgreens are basically baby vegetable plants when they’re in that stage between seedlings and fully-grown vegetables. Small but mighty, they pack in 40x the vitamins and nutrients of fully grown plants. They can be a mix of seedlings from:
Best of all, they are practically effortless vegetables to grow indoors and taste amazing. They don’t need much light compared to most of the other vegetables on this list. You grow them the same way you grow other leafy greens. However, rather than waiting 4+ weeks to harvest, you can start eating fresh microgreens from your indoor garden in just 2-3 weeks. Simply plant them and put them on a sunny windowsill!
- Light needs: 6+ hours.
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist
- Harvest: Ready to harvest anytime after the true leaves appear
Learn More: If you are interested in growing microgreens indoors, we have an entire post dedicated to the tastiest and easy-to-grow quick greens on the market. Check it out!
Sprouts
Sprouts can sometimes be confused with micro greens, but they are different. While both are baby plants, sprouts are grown in jars by soaking the seeds in water. It takes about a week for sprouts to form. By contrast, microgreens grow in soil and take longer to reach the point of harvesting.
Sprouts are one of the easiest vegetables to grow indoors because they don’t require sunlight or soil!
- Light needs: No light is needed
- Water needs: Soak seeds in water until they sprout
- Harvest: Ready to harvest once the spouts fill the jar
Radishes
Try radishes if you want another vegetable that grows quickly from seed to harvest. They’re easy to grow and ready to harvest as fresh produce for salads in just about four weeks. Just be sure they’re planted in a very well-draining pot so they don’t get waterlogged.
- Light needs: 6+ hours.
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist, with good drainage
- Harvest: Radishes are ready to harvest in about 30 days when they start to peek out of the soil
I know there are a lot of radish haters out there. But have you ever had them roasted? If you roast your radishes until they are soft and golden, they taste out of this world. They are also incredibly low-carb.
Green Onions
You can grow green onions (also called scallions) from seeds, but it’s actually much faster and easier to grow them from the root ends of the scallions you already used.
Simply place the root ends in a glass of water, covering the root. Put the glass in a sunny location, and a new green onion will emerge from the top.
- Light needs: 6+ hours
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist
- Harvest: Cut off new growth once it reaches a few inches. You can do this a few times before needing to throw away the original root
Learn More: How to Grow Green Onions
Bulb Onions
If you want a stronger fresh onion flavor for your cooking, onions are another vegetable to grow indoors. They’re fun to grow because you can grow them from seeds or scraps of other onions.
Choose your pot carefully, you’ll need large pots to ensure that it’s large enough for a bulb to expand both in width and depth.
- Light needs: 12+ hours of light a day
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist
- Harvest: When the plant stalks are 6 inches tall
Learn More: See our article for the step-by-step process for Growing Onions in Containers. And once you have those onions matured, you will want to make our pickled onion recipe.
Mushrooms
Indoors is the perfect place to grow mushrooms at home. They really only want a cool, dark place to grow, so a basement or unused closet is perfect. Keep them at around 70 degrees and control the humidity. Plus, there are so many varieties you can grow that you’ll never get bored!
- Light needs: No light is needed.
- Water needs: Keep the soil moist
- Harvest: Pick your mushrooms when the caps start turning up
You can buy a mushroom growing kit, and they come in all kinds of different varieties!
Potatoes
Do you think you can’t grow potatoes indoors? Think again! You can grow them in a pot in soil, or, if there are kids in the house, make it a fun experiment by growing them in a glass jar filled with water. If you have any potatoes that are past their prime and starting to sprout, go ahead and try growing them!
- Light needs: 5+ hours of light each day
- Water needs: Keep soil moist
- Harvest: The plants will start to turn yellow when it’s time to harvest the potatoes
- Related: It’s a great idea to add a few marigolds or even basil plants to your container-grown potatoes to help keep pests away. We have a full guide on the best companion plants for potatoes you may want to check out.
HELPFUL TIPS For Getting Vegetables to Grow Indoors
- Soil: I recommend using indoor potting soil to provide them all the nutrients that your plants need. Promix is our go-to potting mix for all our gardening, indoor and outdoor. Amazon has ridiculous prices. You can find reasonably priced bags and bundles at your local gardening center.
- Light: Lack of light is the most common problem with indoor growing. You’ll most likely need to add some artificial light with grow lights, especially if you plan to grow in the winter months. They aren’t expensive and will make a huge difference in your success.
- Water: When you grow vegetables indoors, they aren’t exposed to intense sun and heat, so they don’t dry out as quickly. You won’t need to water nearly as often, so check if the soil is damp before watering.
- Humidity: Most homes have much lower humidity levels than vegetables prefer. You can run a cool-mist humidifier nearby or lightly spray the plants daily.
- Air circulation: Poor air circulation can make plants susceptible to diseases and pests that thrive in those conditions. Consider adding a small fan to the area to boost the airflow if you don’t have good circulation.
- Pollination: If you need to stand in for pollinating insects, take a cotton swab and wipe the inside of the plant’s flowers to pollinate them.
- Fertilizer: A good all-around basic fertilizer is all you need.
- Containers: Each plant has its own needs for containers, so be sure to choose the correct size for the vegetable you want to grow. Also – most pots have drainage holes, so be sure to put a tray under your pots to catch excess water!
Try these Vegetables To Grow Indoors Yourself
If you want to expand your growing capabilities, try growing vegetables indoors. It will allow you to enjoy fresh produce from the garden all year long and overcome any hurdles you may have to grow vegetables outside! Growing your own food sure beats picking over produce at the grocery store.
With careful planning, you can create a year-round planting schedule for your favorite vegetables, with fresh veggies ripening just as you need them for a continuous harvest!
And don’t forget your indoor gardening tools to make the job easier.
More Gardening Inspiration
- How To Plan A Vegetable Garden In 7 Easy Steps
- 6 Garden Ideas for Small Spaces and Maximum Yields
- Vegetable Container Gardening: 15 Veggies to Grow in Pots
- The Three Best Indoor Hanging Plants for Baskets
- Thyme Plants: How To Grow, Harvest & Use Them
- How to grow Peas In Containers
- Vertical Vegetable Gardens – High Yields In Less Space
- Jalapeno Pepper Jelly Recipe
- The Best Kale Companion Plants For A Robust Harvest
Editorial Note: This post was originally published on May 31, 2021, and was updated on Sept 3, 2023.
