What Vegetables Can I Grow Indoors?

The simple answer is, most of them!

What vegetables should I grow indoors? Well, that is a more interesting question…

The whole idea behind the Tub to Table experiment is to to see which vegetables grow really well indoors. What makes sense to grow indoors, what might save money, what saves packaging, what gets food to your table. Obviously, there are plenty of websites and books dedicated to growing vegetables. The pages on this website, however, are dedicated to my experience growing this stuff inside. Only inside.

Here is the garden just 45 days after a complete re-haul. Every few years, we remove all of the plants and start off fresh…

Growing vegetables indoors has some key differences from traditional outdoor gardening. Typically, it takes any crop longer to grow, and especially, longer to set fruit under artificial lights. So, over the years, I’ve gravitated more towards the faster crops such as the work horse lettuces (very reliable indoors), radishes (easy to grow), and herbs (always nice to have on hand).

But the fun of this experiment has really been in the longer-growing vegetables. Tomatoes, for example, have been a surprisingly reliable crop for us. Peppers, peas, beets and carrots have done unexpectedly well. And we’ve had fun trialing new seeds and new varieties constantly. Just remember, anything that takes a long time outside, is going to take even longer in your indoor garden. But, with patience, it can happen.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way and we’ve learned a lot from this little garden. We’ve dealt with irrigation issues, light questions, soil health, self-pollination and even indoor pests. Let me tell you about my trials and errors, so you don’t have to repeat them! To get started, take a look at our “How to build an indoor garden page for lots of ideas and methods.

Are there any vegetables or particular varieties you’d like to see us trial here at Tub to Table? Let me know in the comments section. Check back often as we are always updating our trials with new varieties!


The Indoor Vegetable Growing Guide A-Z


Beans (A-)

Provider (Bush). Dragon’s Tongue. Toyha (Soy). So far the beans are growing like something out of Jack’s beanstalk! Scored an A- only because they do take up a lot of room in the Tub Garden.

Celery (B+)

Coming Soon Tango. So sadly, the celery was growing gorgeously but got pulled early when we mislabeled it as parsnips. Whoops, gotta start over with that. It is currently at seed stage.

Peas (A+)

Coming soon…Sugar snap, Avalanche (snow) Peas have already been a huge hit with the kids, easy to grow and delicious. Currently trialing 4 different varieties.

Peppers (A-)

Ace, Olympus, Sprinter. The first crop of peppers fell to disease. The second set took forever to finally turn red on the vine. Currently trialing Sprinter and Ace part 2, looking very healthy so far. Results coming soon…

Squash (B+)

Squash. Coming soon. Dunja. Not the most promising indoor crop so far. Working on a new varietal currently that is looking much more promising, but still only predominately male flowers. Results coming soon…

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