The Best Vegetable Growing Kits

AeroGarden Heirloom Salad Greens Seed Pod Kit

Salad days

Upgrade your salads with these plant-to-plate seed pod kits.

Best Overall

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Nothing beats fresh, crisp lettuce, and this kit ensures that you’ll have a steady supply. The pre-seeded grow pods contain Black Seeded Simpson, Deer Tongue, and Parris Island for a delicious salad with a great texture. Each variety can sprout within eight days, and you can grow the pods indoors or outdoors. Once it’s ready to eat, simply pluck off a few leaves and leave the plants intact so that they will continue to grow.

Pros:

• Grow pods are pre-seeded with gourmet lettuce varieties
• Seeds are non-GMO and grown without pesticides or herbicides
• Includes a bottle of specially formulated liquid nutrients, grow domes for optimal germination, and a growing guide with step-by-step instructions

Cons:

• Lettuce is a cool-season crop, so it may bolt and grow bitter in warm months

Black Harvest Indoor Hydroponic Garden

Eat your greens

Spice up your kitchen with this hydroponic herb garden that thrives without soil.

Best Hydroponic

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For the ultimate indoor vegetable garden, look no further than this hydroponic garden from Aerogarden. The plants grow in water with no soil, and the high-performance LED lights maximize photosynthesis so that plants grow up to five times faster than they do in soil with natural sunlight. Because the control panel tells you when to add water and plant food and toggles the lights automatically, there is no guesswork involved, and you’ll be rewarded with happy, healthy plants. To get you started, this kit comes with basil, parsley, dill, thyme, basil, and mint seeds for a thriving kitchen herb garden.

Pros:

• Grows plants quickly and easily without any mess
• LED lights optimize plant growth
• Includes a gourmet herb selection of six plants

Cons:

• The LED lights are very bright, which can be distracting in dark rooms

Nature’s Blossom Exotic Vegetables Growing Kit

Eat the rainbow

Picky eaters are no match for these funky vegetables that everyone will want to try.

Best For Kids

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Fascinate your family and compel your children to eat their vegetables with this unique growing kit. There are seeds for four funky veggie varieties, including purple carrots, black corn, lemon cucumbers, and romanesco broccoli. Eating a range of colors and types of veggies is important because they contain different nutrients and help round out your diet — plus, eating a purple carrot is way more exciting than eating an orange one. Each kit comes with pots, soil, seeds, and markers so that you can start sprouting seeds ASAP.

Pros:

• Includes pots, soil, plant markers and seeds to get you started
• Comes with seeds for four different unusual and delicious vegetables
• Requires no previous gardening experience, making it a great choice for kids and families

Cons:

• The provided pots are great for germinating seeds, but they are too small to grow the vegetables to maturity

Garden Republic Indoor Garden Pepper Seed Starter Kit

Spice up your life

Test your limits with this variety pack of hot peppers that you can grow in your windowsill.

Best For Foodies

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For adventurous eaters, this hot pepper kit is a no-brainer. It comes with four packets of heirloom seeds for a spicy world food tour in the comfort of your own kitchen. You can grow them outdoors or indoors with adequate light, and the included germination kit makes it easy to get started. Once your peppers are ready to harvest, you can use them fresh or dry them to use later as spices.

Pros:

• Comes with habanero, cayenne, Anaheim, and jalapeño pepper seeds
• The kit includes steel scissors for easy harvesting, a natural wood planter with a drip tray, four bamboo plant markers, four grow bags, and instructions
• The seeds are non-GMO and from heirloom varieties

Cons:

• The peppers will outgrow the included pots and must be replanted once the sprouts are five to six inches tall

Back to the Roots Organic Mini Mushroom Grow Kit

Fungus among us

Get gourmet mushrooms in ten days with the help of this convenient kit.

Best For Apartments

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Mushrooms are delicious and nutritious, but they aren’t exactly known for holding up well in the fridge. Fortunately, growing mushrooms at home is extremely easy, so you can have them whenever you want them. Simply place this kit near a window with indirect light, mist it with water twice a day, and your mushrooms will be ready to harvest in as little as ten days. Each crop produces three to four servings of mushrooms, and each kit grows up to two crops.

Pros:

• Mushrooms are ready to harvest in around ten days and can be grown year-round
• Very easy to grow
• Certified organic and non-GMO

Cons:

• Each box only produces about eight servings of mushrooms

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I grow vegetables indoors?

Different vegetables require different amounts of sunlight and growing space, but some varieties do very well indoors. Herbs grow well in sunny windows, as do small peppers and even carrots. Mushrooms don’t require much light, so they’re excellent if you have a dark house. An LED-lit hydroponic garden is an excellent — if expensive — option for growing small light-loving plants indoors.

What are heirloom seeds?

“Heirloom” refers to plant varieties that have existed for more than 50 years. They are grown without GMOs to preserve their original genetic makeup. Because they’ve been selected for preservation, heirloom varieties are exceptionally flavorful and hardy.