Winter days have garden growers yearning for fresh food. Fresh food that they grew themselves, and that didn’t have to travel thousands of miles while suffering in flavor and quality.
While we can’t reasonably grow all that we grow outside inside, there are some things that can be grown quickly and easily. And they don’t need to cost a lot in time, supplies, or lighting and utility. (You will, however, need to provide about six hours of good lighting for most of the vegetables listed here -- but their short growth cycle will reduce the overall hours of utility. And…it’s still probably cheaper than out-of-season grocery store vegetables!)
Of course, it’s also nice when those vegetables can be on the table within the near future.
For a fast return on indoor growing, look to the fastest-growing vegetables. We’ve collected seven. And the bonus is they don’t take up a lot of space, either.
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Things to Grow in 30 Days or Less
You can grow a variety of flavors and a few different types of vegetables in under 30 days. This is the fastest way to get your fresh fix of flavor and nutrition (because whose body isn’t begging for something fresh and nutritious by mid-winter!?).
Here are three (plus) options to get you growing.
Radishes
We don’t think much about radishes for indoor growing, but they make a lot of sense. Many radish varieties are ready in three weeks or less. They thrive in cooler environments. While your house probably isn’t cold, it’s cooler than what plants experience outside in the middle of summer. Of course, that’s when radishes tend to bolt. Indoors, the environment is much more consistent and hospitable to growing radishes.
Radishes beat out most other root vegetables because they have such a short days-to-harvest time. But they are also physically short. That means you don’t need very deep potting equipment to grow them. A flat growing tray can do, but a pot or two of closely planted seeds in a six or twelve-inch terra cotta pot (or other material) will serve quite nicely.
Lettuce
Leaf lettuces can be ready to clip and eat in as few as three weeks. Some, even a little sooner.
For indoor growing, leaf lettuces are the easiest to grow. Harvesting them at the baby leaf stage is the fastest path to harvest. You can still let them grow longer and harvest them at a middle to mature stage. There’s nothing wrong with that, either, and it’s still a fast way to grow fresh food indoors. It will just take more toward the 30 to 40-day mark.
An even better plan is to plant more than one set, harvest some as baby lettuce, and let some grow up to mature leaf lettuce. Start a tray (or two) a week, and you’ll have a steady supply of fresh winter lettuce without ever stepping out in the cold.
Even though it may take longer for mature leaf lettuce to grow, you’ll get more in each harvest because the plants will be bigger. So in the long run, once you have a good rotation going, more mature lettuces can cut down planting and growing time, too.
Choose the cut-and-come-again lettuce varieties, and you’ll be able to get more than one harvest from the same planting.
Spinach
Spinach grows like baby lettuce. And like baby lettuce, it can be left to grow indoors to more mature leaf stages, too.
Depending on the variety, plan to harvest baby spinach in three to four weeks. It will mature between 40 and 50 days, so there are plenty of options there. Mature plants will continue to leaf and produce if you leave some younger leaves on the plant to keep feeding and growing the plant.
Grow in trays or pots as suits your style and space (the same goes for lettuce and all types of indoor greens).
Baby greens
There are a lot of different “greens” plants that can be grown and harvested as baby greens. Managed this way, most are ready in three to four weeks.
Some of these are plants that are always meant to be eaten in their younger leafy stage. Some are plants that would grow into large plants if you let them mature to the typical age and stage of harvest.
The following all make excellent baby greens. They grow to the baby stage and are ready for harvest in a month or less.
- Chard
- Beet greens
- Kale
- Arugula
- Mustard
- Mesclun mix
- Asian greens like bok choi and tat soi
- Napa cabbage
Growing a variety of these, along with lettuce, expands the vitamin and nutrition of what you’re growing indoors. It also gives you a much nicer mix of tastes and flavors.
A great thing about baby greens (and this goes for lettuce, too) is that they can be picked and eaten at any stage after sprouting. So, really, you can start snipping and eating any time after the seeds have sprouted.
Some of these won’t be quite as nice to eat if they are left to go too long. You really want to pick things like kale while they are leafy and small and before they start to resemble their teenage plant stage too much.
Others, like chard, you can let go and keep picking if you have the space to spare to let it grow to a larger stage.
Things to Grow in 60 Days or Less
These vegetables take a bit longer to grow because they don’t have a very immature stage in which to eat them. But there does come a time when you want more than just lettuce and greens in your diet.
And even though it may take a couple of months before you can enjoy these fresh foods, that’s still months sooner than you may be able to grow and harvest if you wait until you can plant them outside!
Mini Cucumbers
Small, miniature cucumber plants grow well inside, and they don’t take too long to get to harvest age. You can pick fresh little cucumbers in about two months’ time.
The cucumbers on most dwarf and miniature varieties are small. They are more like a snacking size; about the size of small pickling or gherkin cucumbers. But the peels are thin and can be eaten, too, and it’s awfully nice to have that fresh flavor in winter and into spring. Also, the small, thin-skinned fruits don’t need any real prepping or peeling.
Beets
Beets can be grown to a small harvest stage in about 40 days or can be grown to a more typical harvest size in about 60 days. Like others on this list, beets and/or beet greens can be picked and eaten at any stage, so if you’re happy with smaller beets, you can harvest them even sooner. And as you’ll see below, they also make excellent microgreens. Beets can be grown as baby greens as well.
Carrots
Carrots have similar growing times as beets do. They can be ready in about 40 days, depending on the variety. The best carrot varieties to grow indoors are small and short types, like the small round carrots or Nantes half-long varieties that only reach about four inches.
They can also be pulled as baby carrots at any time when you feel like they have enough growth. For indoor growing, varieties with short times to harvest (days to harvest) are best.
Bonus: you can use the green tops of carrots, too!
Things to Grow in 60ish Plus Days
Once you get into the 60-plus day range, plants tend to be bigger and have more requirements. Still, if you’re looking for a little more variety in your indoor garden before you can grow outdoors, you might consider growing one of these.
Mini Tomatoes
There are several varieties of miniature, dwarf, and microdwarf tomatoes that can be grown inside. They don’t take up nearly the space that outdoor tomato plants do. Micro tomatoes can be grown in a pot as small as 6 or 12 inches.
Indoor micro tomatoes can mature in about 60 days, but that really depends on the variety. It should also be noted that a lot of varieties of tomatoes, probably due to intense light needs, don’t mature quite as early as their descriptions would lead us to believe. So don’t be surprised if growing takes a little longer than expected.
Small Peppers
Peppers can be grown indoors if you can provide them with enough light. They do well enough under grow lights, but the lights should be on for 16 hours per day (even up to 20) for best results.
You’ll want to grow a smaller pepper variety and one that has a low number of days to maturity. Hot peppers do well but aren’t as versatile. A couple of good varieties of peppers for indoor growing are small or miniature bell peppers like mini bells or lunchbox peppers.
Expect pepper plants to need 60 to 90 days to reach harvest indoors.
Show them the Light!
With only a few exceptions (below), growing any vegetables indoors will require supplemental light. In other words, grow lights.
However, grow light setups do not have to be expensive or extensive. Think about a setup (perhaps a shelf setup) that will allow you to group several different types of vegetables together in pots or trays.
There is a lot you can grow, for example, under a four-foot shop light setup. You will need the right spectrum of light, so you’ll need the right spectrum bulbs. You can use either a cool bulb and a warm spectrum bulb in combination, or you can purchase full spectrum grow lights.
The setup can be created rather affordably and will last a long time. And though there is a cost, there is certainly an expense to buying inferior grocery store produce, so it will probably still work in your favor.
Sprouts, Shoots, and Microgreens Round out the Winter Indoor Garden
A fast, easy, and efficient way to round out your indoor fresh growing is by growing microgreens, sprouts, and shoots. These are really the fastest of all the things you can grow indoors. They’re packed with vitamins and nutrition. Real powerhouse foods!
Sprouts don’t even need grow lights to grow. Microgreens can get away without it if grown in a sunny window. (It doesn't matter if they get leggy because you eat the whole “plant”).
Shoots are grown a little longer than microgreens and a little light can help, but you can also grow them with good ambient and window light. Shoots are a good way to grow peas indoors, or sunflower shoots for some nutty flavor. And you get to eat the whole thing!
Here’s a list (extensive but not exhaustive) of vegetables with good flavor that you can grow as either sprouts, microgreens, or shoots. Or, in many cases, two or three of these things!
- Radish microgreens
- Beet microgreens
- Broccoli microgreens
- Arugula
- Mustard
- Herbs of all sorts, including basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, dill, cilantro, mint, and many more
- Pea shoots
- Sunflower shoots
- Mung bean sprouts
- Alfalfa sprouts
- Broccoli sprouts
- Various flavors of sprouts and sprout mixes (which can also be grown as microgreens)
Basically, if you can eat the whole plant of something, you could use it to grow as a sprout or microgreen. Some will make good shoots, too.
A Solid Indoor Garden Plan
A solid plan for growing fresh, nutritious food indoors in the colder months is to grow fast and easy vegetables as your base. Things like lettuce and baby greens.
Step it up with some complementary veggies like baby roots.
Add a couple of larger plants like cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers for variety.
And look to microgreens, shoots, and sprouts for a real boost of nutrition and flavor.
That’s a lot of indoor homegrown goodness to get you through the “down” time of outdoor garden growing!
(P.S. Some of these potted plants can move outside in the warm weather to be transplanted into the ground, or they can be grown as container or patio plants! More for your time, effort, and money!)
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