Here in the Sensible Survivalist family, we love an indoor vegetable garden. Not only do they help give you the experience required for basic growing and farming (which is much harder than many preppers seem to assume!), they can help you provide for yourself and your family should food supplies run low. They are also a great way to save money on food. I’ve been growing food in my apartment since my days in a college dorm room.

The more self-sufficient you are, the more insulated you are against life’s ups and downs!

Not all of us live in the country and have acres of arable land at our fingertips, but I’m here to tell you that it’s definitely possible to grow your own in an urban environment. I’m not saying you can keep a cow in your apartment. Actually, I guess you probably could – more to the point, you really shouldn’t.

But back when I was a college student with crazy ideas about self-sufficiency, I managed to produce several meals a week from the food I was growing in my own dorm room. I’m not kidding. (Admittedly, that was just the one really good harvest week – but I’m still proud!)

So, starting with tiny dorm rooms and moving up to houses with large backyards, here’s how you can produce food in your own indoor vegetable garden. This is a fairly extensive list – feel free to bookmark this page so you can keep coming back to it.

I’ve also provided links to the seeds and kits I’ve used (full disclosure: they’re affiliate links, so I’ll be given a small referral by the site if you buy anything I’ve linked).

Indoor vegetable garden in one room (plus bathroom)

Say you only have one room, plus access to a bathroom, for your indoor vegetable garden adventures. This was my situation back at college.

Barely anybody grows food in their dorm rooms, and I never really understood why. So many people have little succulents or bonsai trees on their windowsill. Herbs and miniature orange trees are just as pretty in my opinion, not much more work, and far more useful.

Here are just a few of the veggies you can grow on your windowsills.

Microgreens

Microgreens are tiny, tangy little greens that you can eat after just a few weeks or even days of growing them. Did you ever grow cress as a kid? That’s the kind of thing microgreens are.

They require barely any nutrients or effort. You can grow cress with just cotton wool and a sprinkle of water.

You can grow microgreen versions of many larger leafy greens, such as lettuces and radishes. Unfortunately, you can’t regrow them after harvest – you have to re-till your soil and plant again. Basic microgreen seeds are very cheap though, especially if you get them in bulk.

In my dorm, I used to grow a tray of microgreens for a few weeks. Then I’d mark out a few strongest ones and harvest the rest, leaving the stronger ones to grow into larger plants in bigger pots.

The easiest way to grow microgreens is probably to use a kit, like this one on Amazon.

Herbs

It’s common to have herbs on the kitchen windowsill, and I loved having them in my dorm bedroom. They are beautiful and fragrant as well as being useful and easy to look after. Here are my four personal favourites.

Basil

I got a pot of basil because I was growing tomatoes and figured they’d go well together. Basil need light, so I kept them on the windowsill of our shared bathroom, which was lighter than my room. Try them in a tomato sauce, or throw a handful over a pizza.

Chives

Chives are amazing, especially chopped up and thrown on a cream-cheese sandwich. They’re also highly nutritious, especially if they have had enough sunlight to become a rich, dark green.

Mint

I used to make my own mint tea out of the mint I grew in my dorm room. You don’t even have to dry it first – you just add a handful to a mug of hot water. It also smells gorgeous and fresh.

Rosemary

Rosemary smells amazing and is very easy to keep alive.

Personally, I prefer to grow my herbs from pre-potted plants. I usually get them from the local garden store, but if that’s not an option, you can also order baby herb plants online. I’ve never been very successful at growing from seed – let me know if you have any advice for me, I’d love to hear it!

Salad greens

Most small salads don’t need much light, soil or caretaking. I grew lettuce and kale in the tubs on my windowsill.



Carrots

Unfortunately, you can’t grow carrots from old carrot tops. I tried. You just get tons of new carrot leaves. It’s pretty easy to grow carrots from seed, though, and they taste delicious when they’re this fresh. Just don’t be surprised if they grow in weird shapes! I promise that they’ll taste just as good, they just might be a little harder to clean.

Radishes

Not everybody likes radishes, but personally, I adore them. They’re so fresh and peppery. Grow them in a pot, like carrots.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are excellent because once you’re got a good plant going, you can keep it fruiting for a while. If you keep them in a tiny pot, you’re going to get tiny tomatoes, but I had enough on my desk to get quite a plentiful crop.

Mandarin oranges

You could also grow tiny lemons. Little citrus trees are expensive, but not much worse than a bonsai tree and you can sometimes get them on sale at the garden centres. They’re beautiful decoration for your room, and will occasionally produce wonderful fresh fruit.



Mushrooms

Mushrooms are honestly kind of weird to grow, but incredibly fun. You need a kit for them, but you can get them fairly inexpensively at places like this. I grew mine on coffee grounds under my bed for a while. It only takes a month or so to get your first harvest, and they don’t require too much effort, just the right environment.

Indoor vegetable garden in an apartment with a small balcony

An apartment with a small balcony gives you a little more room for your indoor vegetable garden, as you can place bigger and taller pots outside. Just check how much weight your balcony can bear. Pots full of damp soil are really heavy. Also make sure bigger pots can drain well.

Basically, when it comes to apartment homesteading, you can plant any of the foods from the above sections, plus a few bigger plants.

Beans

Beans and peas need upward space, which is harder to do on a windowsill. Grow them in a pot with a stake in it. It can be difficult to get them going, but once you do, you have your own supply of fresh greens.

Peppers

Pepper plants are kind of like tomato plants, but I’ve always found they need a bit more space. They’ll also need plenty of watering.

Potatoes

I absolutely love growing my own potatoes. Jack and I grow them with the kids. There is very little in life more satisfying than digging fresh potatoes out of the soil, like little buried treasures.

They’re also the reason which I mentioned heavy soil. Potatoes grow underground, so you need a lot of soil for them to thrive. When I got my first apartment, I grew them in deep, well-draining grow bags. I had ones very similar to these ones on Amazon.

In an apartment with several large balconies, or a post-stamp yard

For an indoor vegetable garden in a space with several large balconies or even a small yard, you can start thinking about bigger pots with several types of plant in them. If you get enough light, you can pretty much plant any vegetable you want. Consider which plants make good companions, and pot them in large pots together.

These groups plants make great companions, and can be grown on a large balcony or small yard. If you have a yard, search up ideas for square-foot gardening to help you plan.

Beans, carrots, squash Eggplant, beans Tomatoes, basil, onions Lettuce, herbs Spinach, chard, onions

If your balcony or yard is big enough, you could also consider keeping a couple of chickens if your local laws permit that. Ideally though you want a decent-sized chicken coop, so I’d not get chickens unless you have a large-ish yard.

In a house with a big yard

With a large enough yard, you can basically plant any of the above plants, and grow far more of them. There are also a few more things you can start producing.

Chickens!

Backyard chickens are honestly wonderful. Jack and I had backyard chickens back when we lived in town full-time – we wrote this post about our experiences with them. We had way more eggs than we could possible eat.

Make sure your local regulations allow backyard chickens, and that they have plenty of space. Don’t keep them if you want a nice lawn – chickens will destroy any grassy area they can get to.

Also, maybe have a word with the neighbours before getting chickens. Even without a rooster, they can be pretty loud. They’re also going to escape, as I found out over and over again.

Rabbits

Rabbits aren’t too bad to look after and are delicious to eat. They breed incredibly quickly. Technically, you could keep them in an apartment, but if you’re intending to breed rabbits for food, you’re going to need quite a few and you’ll quickly run out of space.

Fruit trees

We have gorgeous apple and cherry trees, and I’ve canned enough fruit over the years to last an age. If you have the space, definitely get fruit trees, or even soft fruit bushes.

Greenhouse plants

If your yard is big enough, consider getting a greenhouse. This hugely ups the amount you can produce, because you can extend your growing season. Greenhouses are expensive, but well worth it if you’re going to be taking your backyard growing super seriously.

If you have access to an allotment

Some of our friends in town have tiny yards, but have bought allotment spaces a short drive away from home. Check whether your town or city has available allotments. You can grow pretty much any of the above things with a large enough allotment. If there’s enough space, and if rules allow, you could even get a couple of goats or sheep.

To wrap this up, let me just say again how awesome indoor vegetable gardens can be. You’re not going to be able to sustain yourself from the produce of a tiny apartments, but you can supplement your diet cheaply. You’ll also learn some of the skills required to grow your own food on a large scale, which isn’t always as easy as you might think!

Now, say you’re interested in becoming entirely self-sufficient from your own produce. How can that be done? How much space would you need to be self-sufficient? Well, generally I’d say you would need at least an acre for a small family. Having said that, people can produce huge amounts of food in tiny space when they put their mind to it. This family grow almost all their food needs on a TENTH of an acre, and are still able to sell over $65,000 worth of produce every year. They’re my personal idols, I have to say. I’d also recommend you check out other blogs about apartment homesteading – the Prairie Homestead blog has a wonderful post here, and The Grow Network go into incredible detail in their post here.

So yes, you can definitely grow your own food even in the tiniest of spaces. Your indoor vegetable garden can be fun, rewarding and downright delicious.

Let me know if you’ve grown produce in a tiny space! I’m always looking for inspiration, advice and motivation, and so are my readers.

Thank you for stopping by!

Love,

Annie

PS: If you enjoyed this post, you might like this one I wrote about the homesteading skills my grandmother learned during WWII.

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