Vegetable gardening is a favorite pastime for many, especially for those of us who love to cook with fresh vegetables and herbs. However, in order to grow your own vegetable garden, its common thought that a big open space in your yard is needed. The good news is that this is not the case.

If you are someone who doesn't have a lot of room outside, consider using indoor containers for your vegetable gardening. By gardening indoors, you may not be able to garden big vegetables and your options may be limited, but there are definitely some benefits to indoor vegetable gardening with containers.

The Types of Vegetables Best Suited for Indoor Container Gardening

For indoor gardening, you will want to use smaller vegetables, so things like corn are probably out of the question. However tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and even green beans or carrots can be viable vegetable options for indoor container gardening. Anything that can be contained in some type of container without being cramped and restricted from growing well can work well for your indoor garden, and these fresh vegetables will make a world of difference in your cooking.

The Kinds of Containers to Use

For indoor container vegetable gardening, containers that have wholes in the bottom are the best to use. This gives the soil a chance to eliminate un-needed water which otherwise would kill your vegetables. You simply place the container on top of a deep dish that can catch the water, and empty the dish every so often depending on how much water the vegetables discard.

Depending on the vegetable, large containers used for plants can work well. Tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers do well in plant containers. For vegetables like carrots or green beans, you'll want to use narrower, longer containers. These kinds of containers offer a row like garden, similar to what you'd find outside for these vegetables.

The soil used should be specifically for vegetable gardening, and the kind used outside will do just as well inside. You'll probably want to make sure and find a place for your indoor container vegetable gardens that has access to light during the day, but keeps the vegetables safe from frost and chilly nights at the same time. If you can't find such a place, find one of each and simply move them from one place to another when necessary.

After just a few weeks of indoor container gardening, you should find that your vegetables are growing nicely and are ready for picking shortly. If you keep up on the replanting when it's time, you can have fresh indoor vegetables throughout the entire year.