Top 5 Vegetables for Your Indoor Winter Garden

The best way to enjoy fresh vegetables is to grow your own. While this is easy enough during the spring and summer, in the winter it is more complicated. Believe it or not it is perfectly possible to grow food crops indoors during the winter months provided you choose the right vegetables. In this article which I found in Off the Grid News Jacki Andre explains how you can grow vegetables in hanging baskets.

The square footage of my vegetable garden is about the same as the square footage of my house. While I do love fresh organic veggies, finding space to grow them indoors during the winter can be a bit of a puzzle. One way to maximize indoor growing space is to use hanging baskets.
Getting Ready to Plant
Bigger baskets will give your edibles more room to flourish. Choose baskets that are at least 12 inches deep. Their diameter can be as small as 6 inches, but the bigger you go, the more you can plant.
Choosing Edibles to Plant
Dwarf varieties are best for hanging baskets. Compact plants that produce small, light fruits will keep your baskets healthy and manageable. Some plants, like tomatoes, have varieties bred specifically for baskets. For others, such as cucumbers, choose cultivars with smaller fruit.
1. Tomatoes
There are lots of great choices when it comes to tomatoes. Florida Basket and Micro Tom are just two of the varieties bred for baskets and pots. Tomatoes that mature early, such as Tumbler F1 and Tumbling Tom, are also good choices for growing indoors.
2. Peas and beans

Image source: Pixabay.com

As a cool weather crop, peas are particularly well-suited to growing indoors during the winter. Since they can tolerate light frosts, you don?t need to worry about the vines getting too close to frosty windows.
Cucumbers
Choose your cucumber varieties carefully. Some, like Carmen, are bred to grow indoors ? or, rather, in greenhouses. These cultivars have a high propagation rate, high yields, good disease resistance, and most importantly for the indoor gardener, they self-pollinate. However, Carmen produces large 14-16 inch fruit, which will be difficult to manage in hanging baskets.