Fast-Growing Vegetables to Grow at Home

Do you like fast food? Fast-growing food that is.

Or maybe you're looking for a quick win in the garden.

I've got five veggies that you can grow super fast in your kitchen garden. Actually, two of them can be grown indoors, right on your kitchen counter even. The other three will need some kind of container garden or kitchen garden setup.

No matter your growing situation, try one of these recommendations for delicious, nutritious, fast-growing things you can enjoy almost right away... like within about two to four weeks.

Seriously! You really will be able to enjoy your crops in two to four weeks.

That's super fast, right?

Microgreens Are Fast-Growing Vegetables You Can Grow Indoors

I'm sure you've heard about microgreens and how they're all the rage right now. And for good reason!

Microgreens are basically the initial growth of vegetable plants. They're planted by seed in soil and given enough light to form their first couple sets of leaves. They're basically one step up from sprouts, which can be grown in nothing but water as their medium and without any light at all.

Most microgreens seeds are for plants that would have eventually become a plant that you'd harvest for its leaves. (Explore our full list of plant varieties you can grow as microgreens.)

Microgreens can be picked just after the first true leaves have developed. When seeds pop out of the soil, they have two little leaf-like things called cotyledons—these are not the true leaves of the plant, so you typically wouldn't harvest at that point. The next two leaves to appear will be what we call the true leaves and will resemble the leaves of the mature vegetable plant.

Microgreens are harvested generally when they're between one and two inches long. You'll cut both the stem and the leaves to eat. This, by the way, is why you wouldn't grow something like a tomato as a microgreen because we don't eat the stems or leaves of tomatoes. Plants with inedible plant parts don't get to play the microgreen game.

Have you ever bought baby arugula, baby spinach, or baby chard from the store? These microgreens are even more baby than baby greens, if you can imagine it. They're also so cute. I think of them as little fairy foods!

Microgreens have been growing in popularity over the last five to ten years, and you can probably find them at a farmers' market or as a garnish at a fancy restaurant.

How to Grow Microgreens Quickly Indoors

Follow these simple steps to grow your own microgreens in about two weeks.

Step 1 to grow microgreens

Buy seeds intended to be grown as microgreens. You'll need a large quantity of seeds (in other words, buy in bulk). Some of my favorites plants to grow as microgreens are Swiss chard, mustard greens, beets, sunflowers, kale, and cilantro. You'll get all the flavor of the mature plant in one little bite, so make sure you like the taste of the mature plant you want to grow.

Step 2 to grow microgreens

Grab a shallow tray (one that's three to five inches deep) and fill it with rehydrated organic seed starting mix. (To rehydrate this mix, you just add water and stir it in a bowl until the mix can hold its shape in your hand without dripping water.) I've also grown microgreens in straight-up compost before.

Step 3 to grow microgreens

Plant your seeds tightly together—much closer than you'd even think of sowing seeds in a typical kitchen garden or vegetable garden. These little guys won't need very much room to stretch out since we're just growing them for their first sets of leaves. I use my fingers to scatter seeds and then spread out any clumps with a hand rake.

Step 4 to grow microgreens

Cover your seeds lightly with more seed starting mix.

Step 5 to grow microgreens

Spritz your seeds with a spray bottle of water and put them under a light source. While you can put them in a windowsill, they're not going to grow strong and robust with just natural light like this. I highly recommend using a grow light. The more light you can give them, the better they will grow. Keep your soil moist over the next two weeks.

Step 6 to grow microgreens

In about 14 to 21 days, your microgreens will be ready to harvest. To harvest microgreens, you'll simply cut each stem at the base with scissors. These baby plants won't regrow after being harvested, so empty your tray into a compost pile and start a fresh batch.

Microgreens Are Quick and Nutritious

I've been extra-aware of how important it is to feed my body more vitamins and minerals in the past couple of years, and the great thing about microgreens is that they're packed with nutrition. Inside each little microgreen are all the nutrients that would have eventually spread out over the plant. So, for example, if you enjoy a kale microgreen, you're getting all the good stuff that would have eventually been dispersed throughout tall stems and long leaves—and you're getting it in just one little bite. Each microgreen is like a daily vitamin.

I usually toss microgreens into salads and use them to add some texture to tacos and sandwiches.

Microgreens are especially fun for kiddos because they're so cute, edible, and snack-able. If you have trouble getting your kids to eat kale or spinach, this might be a more easily digestible option for them! 

Let's move onto our second fast-growing vegetable. But honestly, if you stop reading right now and focus on growing your own microgreens, there are so many new flavors you can explore!

Arugula Is One of the Easiest Fast-Growing Vegetables from Seed

Arugula, also known as rocket, is going to be one of the easiest things you'll ever grow in your garden, and it's super fast to come up and be ready to harvest. Like microgreens, it's also super good for you. It has vitamin C, calcium, and a quarter of your daily value of vitamin K.

Personally, I do not like grocery-store arugula. Freshly grown arugula beats it hands down, every single time. The other thing I love about arugula is that it grows in all kinds of different temperatures. It will grow in cool temperatures, warm temperatures, and even in triple-digit temperatures.

How to Grow Arugula

I recommend growing arugula outdoors in your kitchen garden or salad garden. Arugula can handle some cold weather, especially if you cover it with frost cloth, so you'll be able to grow it many months out of the year.

Here are the steps to plant arugula:

Step 1 to grow arugula

Prepare the soil in a raised bed or a container that has at least one good drainage hole. I love growing arugula seed in 100% compost. I'll use my normal soil blend underneath but will add a fresh layer of two to three inches of compost before sowing seeds.

Step 2 to grow arugula

Take time to level your soil before planting because arugula seeds are like teeny tiny pebbles. Any dips or rises in your soil can cause these little guys to slide around.

Step 3 to grow arugula

Spread the arugula seeds out (easier said than done). You can scatter seeds with your fingers and then use a hand rake to spread them out a bit so that arugula seedlings don't feel crowded once they start growing. Alternatively, you can carefully place seeds every 2 to 3 inches in rows that are staggered if you'd like your plants to have more space to grow to maturity.

Step 4 to grow arugula

Cover the seeds with a light layer of compost.

Step 5 to grow arugula

Water. Try to keep the soil consistently moist but not soaked.

Homegrown Arugula in Just 30 Days

Within three to four weeks, you are going to be harvesting arugula. It’s pretty amazing. Harvest leaves when they're still small and sweet if you don't love the peppery bite of more mature arugula leaves.

To harvest arugula, cut the older leaves around the edge of the plant, leaving the center to keep growing. If you cut off the entire thing at once, you might get regrowth, but it's not as likely.

I like to just come and take a little bit from each of my plants every time I harvest, rather than chopping off the whole plant, so that I can come back later for more leaves. The great thing about arugula is that you don't just get a fast harvest—you get multiple harvests!

(Find more tips for growing arugula.)

How to Enjoy Garden-Fresh Arugula

If you've never had freshly harvested arugula, you haven't really had arugula, in my opinion. You’ll find it hard to go back to the grocery store stuff.

Ways to Enjoy Kitchen Garden Arugula

• Tossed onto a fresh salad with a bit of parmesan
• Thrown into a smoothie
• Added to an omelet
• Sautéed with a dash of balsamic vinegar

Radishes Are Some of the Fastest-Growing Vegetable Plants There Are

Radishes are the fastest growing root crop you'll typically find in a kitchen garden. They can grow in just 30 to 45 days, while beets and carrots require more like 75 to 90 days. Some radish varieties grow in as little as 18 days!

Radishes are also super nutritious. They have vitamin C, fiber, folate, lots of vitamin D, and magnesium—all really good things that your body needs.

How to Grow Radishes

I have to admit that I had tons of fails with radishes when I first started gardening. I read all these blog posts and saw YouTube videos about how radishes were so easy and a beginner gardener's best friend, but I just didn't have that experience with them.

The trick, I've since learned, is picking the right seeds (for me, that's French breakfast radishes) and sowing them correctly.

Follow these steps to plant your radishes by seed:

Step 1 to grow radishes

Use a small rake to loosen the top couple inches of soil in a raised bed or container. Add some compost to the top of the soil.

Step 2 to grow radishes

Level the surface of the soil with the hand rake so that there are no dips or valleys. Radishes are in the same family as arugula, so the seeds are, again, super tiny.

Step 3 to grow radishes

Space your radish seeds 2 to 3 inches apart. (If you accidentally drop two seeds in one spot, you'll need to come back later and thin them. Of course, I never do that because I'm such a professional gardener, but maybe it'll happen to you. Just joking.) It's super important to space radish seeds out properly since we're growing them for their roots. You need each little plant to feel like it has room to spread out and grow underground.

Step 4 to grow radishes

Cover the seeds with a light layer of compost.

Step 5 to grow radishes

Water. Keep the soil consistently moist while radishes are sprouting and growing. You'll also want to ensure your radishes receive sunlight on their leaves while they're growing. Don't let another plant shade them too much, or they'll grow leggy and you won't see proper root formation.

Learn more about planting radishes by seed.

Begin checking if your radishes are ready to be harvested after about 30 days or so. Learn the three signs that your radishes are ready to be harvested.

How to Enjoy Garden Radishes

Radishes can be a little peppery (again, they're in the same family as arugula) or even bitter, but I promise you can make them taste yummy!

My personal favorite way to cook and enjoy radishes is to roast them in the oven the same way I roast my potatoes. I don't really understand food science, but my experience tells me that heating them up pulls out their sugars because they taste sweeter to me than when I eat them raw. I just cover them in a little bit of olive oil and salt, and stick them in the oven.

You could also just slice them really thin and add them as a topping on a taco or a salad. To me, I think the secret to enjoying vegetables is all in the chop. 

You always have the option of pickling them. We did that with our radishes last summer, and they were super duper delicious and refreshing.

If you love the flavor of radishes but can't commit garden space to growing them, check out these steps to grow radishes as sprouts instead. Radish sprouts are ready to enjoy in just 7 days!

Green Onions & Garlic Greens Are Fast Vegetables to Grow at Home

I love how easy chives are to care for, but they're actually slow to grow from seed. Green onions and garlic greens are, in contrast, super fast and easy to grow from kitchen scraps.

If you buy green onions from the store and leave the roots attached to the white base, cutting only the green stalk, you can replant the bottom part in soil or compost for a fast-growing plant! This is a great garden project to do indoors in a pot with good drainage, or outdoors right in your garden. Follow these steps to regrow green onions from the store.

You'll continue to get green stems from that initial bulb, and it's a great way to make the most of food you already have from the store that would otherwise go to waste.

Now let's look at how to plant fast-growing garlic greens.

How to Grow Garlic Greens

You can grow garlic for the greens, not the bulbs, indoors in a pot or container. You can also plant cloves directly in your garden.

If you're growing indoors, all you'll need for this gardening project is a pot filled with potting soil or a potting soil/compost mix, plus a draining tray.

Step 1 to grow garlic greens

Buy an organic garlic bulb from the store or farmers' market. Non-organic might have been treated with something to prevent sprouting.

Step 2 to grow garlic greens

Split the bulb into individual garlic cloves. Leave as much skin on as possible.

Step 3 to grow garlic greens

Plant each clove with the tip pointing up. This is where the little green shoots will grow from. Use a dibber to create little planting holes about 2 inches apart. Once you've put a clove in each hole, cover them up and move your pot somewhere sunny.

Step 4 to grow garlic greens

Keep the soil in your pot consistently moist but not soaking. Make sure to empty the draining tray whenever there's standing water.

Greens grow very quickly from the cloves.

Whenever you're ready to harvest, cut each stem down to two or three inches above the soil level. You don't want to cut all the stems at once, and you definitely don't want to cut the ones that are just starting to grow up from the center because that is next week's harvest. I generally just come and grab an outside green or two, and then let it keep growing from the center. In general, if you had 10 to 20 green onions or garlic cloves planted, you could be coming out and cutting greens within two or three weeks, and you'll be able to keep cutting from them for months.

If you plant these cloves outdoors in the fall before your first frost, you'll end up with a full garlic bulb about nine months later. You can still plant these cloves in the spring or summer, though, and end up with lots of garlic greens you can cut. (You may or may not get a tiny bulb, as well).

How to Enjoy Green Onions & Garlic Greens

Planting these guys outdoors will benefit your garden because they're both great companion plants, especially for things like arugula and radishes. Their strong scent keeps all kinds of pests away.

In addition to benefiting your garden, they'll also benefit you because they're filled with antioxidants and can help fight bacterial infections.

There are so many ways that you can enjoy these greens—they really can enhance almost any dish. I like to add them to soups and salads, but I also add them to recipes that end up being a little too filled with carbs or cheese. That way I can feel like I’m actually eating a vegetable. 

Green onions were one of the first things I ever grew. I had a little pot that I kept on my front stoop, and every time I cut some greens for an omelette, I felt like Martha Stewart in the best way.

Pea Shoots Are Quick Edible Plants You Can Grow Indoors

We call this last one a shoot, even though it's technically another microgreen. A pea shoot is the first growth of the pea seed. Pea shoots are another way to get all of the nutrition from the pea but a whole lot faster. Just like with leafy microgreens, when we grow peas for their shoots, we're going to harvest them sooner rather than later. They'll be ready within two to three weeks because we're not letting them grow to their full potential and produce lots of new peas. 

Let's talk a little bit about peas. They're full of beta carotene, vitamin C, folate, and fiber. One of the things I like about growing pea shoots versus just leafy microgreens is that they're also going to have a little bit of protein. They're a denser vegetable to enjoy.

Alright, Nicole. I’m convinced! So how do you grow pea shoots?

How to Grow Pea Shoots

You can do the exact same thing that we talked about for microgreens in terms of growing pea shoots indoors. Once again, fill a shallow tray with seed starting mix, plant the seeds super close together, and then harvest them when they're about one and a half to two inches long. You can even let them grow a little bit longer.

The super fun thing about growing pea shoots is that you can eat all parts of that shoot. You can eat the leaves, the stem, the tendrils—every little bit of it is edible except for the soil-covered roots.

When growing pea shoots indoors, make sure they're either near a window or under lights. I'm currently growing two sets, and I grew some in the window and some under lights, and they’ve both done pretty well!

How to Enjoy Fresh Pea Shoots

Pea shoots are fun and delicious. My kids will literally pinch and eat these right from the containers or straight from the garden. To me, they have that quintessential spring flavor. 

Thanks to their crunchiness, pea shoots make an ideal base for a salad mix. They also work on their own as a side dish.

Martha Stewart has a great recipe for pea shoots that you can find here. Joshua McFadden also has a tasty recipe for a toast with pea shoots that you can find in his book Six Seasons.

You'll Find Easy Gardening Success with One of These Fast-Growing Vegetables

I hope these five quick things to grow in the garden have inspired you to buy some seeds (or save some kitchen scraps) and get growing! You don't have to wait until you have the perfect kitchen garden setup to grow a little bit of your own delicious and nutritious food.

Here's something to keep in mind: The faster your veggies grow, the fewer opportunities there are for problems to occur. These are really low-commitment, low-skill ways to start gardening.

Thanks for helping make gardening ordinary again!