13 Best Vegetables for Growing Indoors
Easy-Growing Indoor Vegetables for Beginners
The Spruce / Kara Riley
Growing vegetables indoors allows you to continue harvesting your favorite foods year-round, even in the coldest seasons. That means the onset of winter doesn't have to put an end to harvesting vegetables. With the right tools, conditions, vegetable garden ideas, and methods, indoor growing lets you harvest some of your favorite varietals indoors for months before the weather turns favorable again. These include vegetables like carrots, herbs, tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce.
While growing vegetables in containers indoors does have its challenges—they'll take more care and may not yield as much—it is possible to find great success. Start off on the right foot by choosing one of these easy-to-grow indoor varieties, and you'll go from growing seedlings indoors to harvesting vegetables in no time.
Tips for Growing Vegetables Indoors
There are a few tips to keep in mind if you're considering growing vegetables indoors.
Grow vegetables in containers that have ample holes to allow for adequate drainage and are sized correctly for the particular plant you're growing. Shallow and rooted greens may only need about a 2-inch depth, but deep-rooted tomatoes will need at least 12 inches of soil.
Use a good quality potting mix, not garden soil from the minute you start seeds indoors. Mixes dedicated to potting usually have vermiculite or perlite, which allows for better drainage.
Optimize your conditions, including water, soil quality, and fertilization, when gardening indoors. This lets you focus on growth, without worrying about weather and critters.
Make sure your indoor plants get the light and nutrients they need since they won't have the outdoor advantages of natural sunlight, pollinating insects, and wind.
Provide proper air circulation, which is vital for flooding the plant with carbon dioxide as well as pollinating any flowers.
Have a plan to deal with any houseplant pests that might show up.
Growing Vegetables Indoors Without Sunlight
One of the challenges of growing vegetables indoors is the lack of direct sunlight and, in some cases, you'll want to consider some type of supplemental lighting if your home doesn't offer enough natural light. This additional, artificial light helps plants produce the same food and nutrients that they would outdoors through sunlight and photosynthesis.
Adding supplemental light is often necessary when there aren't large, south-facing windows available, since those will provide the most abundant natural light. LED grow lights help replicate necessary sunlight. For example, full sun outdoors is 6 to 8 hours per day. An LED grow light replicates this in 8 to 16 hours. However, too much LED light harms plants, so it may be helpful to look into an artificial plant light with a timer.
Before you choose an artificial light, consider how different colors will impact your plant growth. A red light is ideal in the flower stage and will encourage taller growth and leafier plants, while a blue light should be brought in when a plant is in the vegetable stage.
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Best Vegetables to Grow Indoors
Carrots
Carrots are accommodating and low-maintenance vegetables. Growing them in containers is not just a great option for indoor growing. It also solves the problem of trying to grow them in heavy, rocky soil should your outdoor conditions be unfavorable.
Smaller carrot varieties are the easiest to grow inside; they need less space and mature more quickly. A long container, such as a window box, is ideal. Lightly cover the seeds with damp peat moss, so the seeds don’t dry out. Keep the soil moist, and your seeds should germinate within two weeks, though the number of days to maturity will depend on the variety you are growing.
Name: Carrots (Daucus carota)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-10
Light: Full sun to partial shade
Soil: Loose, well-draining soil with a neutral to slightly acidic pH
Days to Maturity: 50-75 days
Garlic Greens
The Spruce / Michele Lee
If you've ever left a garlic bulb alone for a few weeks (or you've put garlic in the fridge), you may have noticed the clove sprouting a little green foot from one of its ends. Instead of tossing it, plant that sprouting garlic clove about an inch deep in a small container and water it. Within weeks, you'll have garlic greens.
Start harvesting when they grow to 8 to 10 inches long by cutting off just what you need and leaving the rest (you generally only get one flush of growth from each clove). They may sprout again, but the quality declines each time. So start new cloves when you begin harvesting the current crop.
Don't anticipate yielding a bulb of garlic. You need a particular temperature to start forming bulbs, and that won't happen indoors. However, garlic greens are an excellent substitute. They boast a milder taste, similar to a cross between garlic and scallions.
Name: Garlic Greens (Allium sativum)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 4-9
Light: Full sun
Soil: Well-draining soil with a slightly acidic to neutral pH
Days to Maturity: 90 days
Hot Peppers
The Spruce / Marie Iannotti
Pepper plants are tropical perennials. They shrivel at just the hint of frost, but indoors they thrive. Plant some sweet or hot peppers from seed, or pot some plants from your garden in late summer to bring inside. You might not get a huge harvest, but they will fruit.
Use a container that is at least 8 inches tall, and ensure that your peppers get at least 10 hours of light each day. Additionally, allow the container to dry out between waterings, so you don't risk drowning the plant. Peppers are self-pollinating, but you may need to help them along, either jostling the plants to shake the pollen from one flower to another or using a cotton swab to dust each flower with pollen.
Name: Hot Peppers (Capsicum annuum)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 9-11
Light: Full sun
Soil: Well-draining soil with a neutral pH
Days to Maturity: 70-85 days
Lettuce
Lettuce (and other salad greens) is a fast-growing vegetable and shallow-rooted, so it will not need a deep container. Choose a planter that is 2 to 4 inches deep, and fill it with moist, well-draining soil. Sow your seeds by gently pressing them into the surface of the soil, and then mist to keep them moist. You should see germination within about one week.
Allow the plants to grow at least 4 to 6 inches before you start harvesting. Cut or pull the outer leaves and allow the center of the plant to continue growing.
Name: Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 2-11
Light: Full sun to partial sun
Soil: Loamy, rich, well-drained soil with an acidic to neutral pH
Days to Maturity: 30-70 days
Microgreens
Microgreens are tiny fresh sprouts that are among the most effortless foods to grow indoors, especially considering they don’t take up much space or time. Typically, they're a mix of seeds from various greens and herbs, such as beets, radishes, kale, Swiss chard, and basil.
Because these greens will be harvested as seedlings, you don’t need much soil; a shallow tray about 2 inches deep typically works well. Fill it with moist soil, and scatter your seeds, barely covering them with a top layer of soil (just press gently so that the seeds make good contact with the damp soil and won’t dry out). Spray to keep the soil moist, and you should see germination within a few days. Start harvesting when seedlings have developed two sets of true leaves. Use scissors to snip them off at the soil level, and you may get another spurt of growth.
Name: Microgreens
Light: 18 hours of artificial light
Soil: No soil, peat based mix
Days to Maturity: 14-21 days
Scallions
The Spruce / Sandhya Moraes
While you can’t grow traditional bulb onions indoors, scallions do just fine. And you actually don’t even need seeds to get them started. Plop a bunch of scallions in about an inch of water in a container. Some gardeners have even had success replanting the root end of scallions after using the tops.
When the roots have reached a couple inches long, move them to a shallow container of potting mix to continue growing. Harvest the green tops, leaving about an inch of the stem to regrow.
Name: Scallions (Allium fistulosum)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 6-9
Light: Full sun
Soil: Sandy, loamy, well-drained with an acidic to neutral pH
Days to Maturity: 50-70 days
Tomatoes
The Spruce / Marie Iannotti
Tomatoes are tropical perennials that die off at the end of their season, returning again the following year. If you have a large tomato plant already established in your garden, your best bet is to leave it there. However, if you want to grow tomatoes year-round indoors, start a new plant from seed at the end of summer.
Once the seedlings are 4 inches tall, move them to a permanent pot, and make sure they have at least 10 hours of light per day. The lighting quota might sound excessive, but if you want fruits that is what this plant needs all year. You can also boost your luck by feeding your tomato plant with a water-soluble organic fertilizer after repotting.
Once the plants start setting flowers, shake them periodically to allow the pollen to fall from flower to flower. You need to perform this manual pollination; without it, no fruits will form. Expect the plants to become top-heavy, so staking or using a tomato cage is a must.
Name: Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 2-11
Light: Full sun
Soil: Loamy, well-drained with an acidic pH
Days to Maturity: 50-65 days
Potatoes
Getty Images/mikroman6
Potatoes might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of vegetables to grow indoors, but they're an easy-to-grow, low-maintenance plant that grows well in containers.
To keep an ample harvest of potatoes going all season long, plant a variety of potatoes that reach maturity at different times. You can also mix in sweet potatoes.
While potatoes grow in the ground, they do require full sun, so you'll want to put them either in a sunny, south-facing window, or enlist the help of an artificial light.
Name: Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-11
Light: Full sun
Soil: Loamy with an acidic pH
Days to Maturity: 80-100 days
Radishes
Getty Images/Edalin
Quick-growing radishes are a small and popular root vegetable that grows easily indoors. These annuals are planted for a spring or fall harvest, adding brilliant color to salads and other dishes.
Radishes only need to be planted three inches apart after you separate the seedlings, which means they adapt seamlessly to growing in containers and live happily on a sunny windowsill or under an LED grow light.
If you hope to have radishes all season long, plant them in stages. This will give you an ongoing succession of maturing radishes that will last for weeks or months.
Name: Radishes (Raphanus sativus)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 2-11
Light: Full sun
Soil: Loamy, sandy, moist, well-drained with an acidic to neutral pH
Days to Maturity: 30-60 days
Herbs
Getty Images/nevarpp
Herbs are one of the most popular plants to grow indoors and varieties like basil, oregano, parsley, mint, rosemary, and thyme are all known to thrive on kitchen windows, ready for a quick addition to a meal at any point.
Many herbs will grow quickly under the right conditions, even indoors, and you can begin harvesting them once they've reached six inches tall. Never take more than two to three inches at a time, but harvest regularly. This will encourage the plants to keep growing.
It is possible to plant more than one type of herb in a single container, just make sure you match up their sun and water needs. For example, Mediterranean herbs like thyme and rosemary thrive in full sun and prefer to dry out between watering. Meanwhile, basil and mint will wilt if their soil isn't kept continuously moist.
USDA Hardiness Zones: 2-11
Light: Full sun
Soil: Loamy, sandy, well-drained
Days to Maturity: Varies for each herb
Kale
The Spruce / Debbie Wolfe
There are considerable size differences between kale varieties. For indoor growing, pick a compact variety that is suitable for container-growing or one that can be harvested for baby leaves.
Kale has a relatively fast growth rate; it grows from seed to harvest in about three months. Outdoors, it is best planted in the late winter or early spring or late summer for a fall-to-winter harvest. Indoors, you don’t have these seasonal limitations as long as you keep the room temperature between 60 and 70 degrees F. Placing kale in an east-facing window helps prevent scorching from the afternoon sun.
Name: Kale (Brassica oleracea)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 7-9
Light: Full sun to partial sun
Soil: Loamy, moist, well-drained
Days to Maturity: 50-55 days
Celery
The Spruce / Cori Sears
Growing celery from the base of the stalk is a fun, easy indoor garden project. You might get more leaves than stalks when growing celery from its base, and your celery might not be as big as a store-bought bunch but you will get fast results.
You start out by placing the base in water and place it in a location with bright light but out of direct sunlight. That’s the other great thing about growing celery—it does not require grow lights or a sunny spot in a window. All you need to do it keep it moist. Once it has started to grow new leaves, they are ready to be harvested. Or, if you want to keep growing it, plant it in potting soil.
Name: Celery (Apium graveolens)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 2-11
Light: Partial sun
Soil: Loamy, moist, well-drained
Days to Regrow Leaves: 5-7 days
Arugula
The Spruce / K. Dave
Arugula has all the characteristics of an excellent crop indoors. It is compact, it grows fast, and it doesn't grow well in the heat of summer so indoor spaces where it is protected from the scorching sun work really well. Growing arugula indoors also keeps it out of reach of the notorious flea beetles that voraciously devour the leaves.
Outdoors, arugula has two seasons, early spring and late summer into fall. Indoors, you are not limited to just planting arugula twice. For a continual harvest, sow more seeds every two to three weeks.
Name: Arugula (Eruca versicaria)
USDA Hardiness Zones: 2-11
Light: Full sun to partial sun
Soil: Loamy, moist, well-drained
Days to Maturity: 40-50 days
Choosing Vegetables to Grow Indoors
For your first try at indoor vegetable gardening, lettuces, microgreens, and indoor herb gardening will most likely offer the best chance of success. Due to the high light and humidity requirements of vegetables like tomatoes and peppers, growing these plants to harvest indoors is more time-consuming and will probably involve the cost of special equipment, such as extra lighting and, in the case of tomatoes, large pots. Moreover, there are a number of ornamental peppers on the market grown as houseplants, and many of these peppers are also edible.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can you grow vegetables indoors year-round?
You can grow vegetables indoors all year round! With the right conditions, including the right soil, sunlight, artificial light, and water, vegetables thrive indoors. They also don't take up as much room as you might expect, meaning you are able to enjoy a harvest 365 days a year.
What temperature is needed to grow vegetables indoors?
The ideal temperature range depends on what you are growing. Heat-loving crops like tomatoes do best with daytime temperatures in the upper 70s and in the mid- to lower 60s at night. Cool-season crops such as kale and lettuce thrive in cooler temperatures of 70 degrees F during the day and around 55 degrees F at night. Unless you have two rooms where you are able to adjust the temperature as needed, it works best if you grow only vegetables with the same temperature preferences simultaneously.
Do LED grow lights work for vegetables?
LED grow lights help bridge the gap between sunlight indoors and the direct light that your vegetables and herbs need. Generally, plants will need more hours of LED light than they would with full sun.
What kind of light is needed to grow vegetables indoors?
Regular house lamps won't do the trick if you're looking to substitute artificial light for natural light for growing plants. Look for an LED grow light that has a full spectrum LED bulb. Generally, blue light in the 5,000-7,000K range is best for the vegetation stage, while red light in the 3,500-4,500K range is best in the flowering stage.
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