Mini-Vegetable Ideas for Small Garden Spaces (2024)

Don’t let a lack of garden space keep you from growing the foods you crave! Look for vegetables and fruit bred for small spaces and containers.Here is a short list of small plants with big yields, includingcherry tomatoes, Little Gem lettuce, peppers, eggplant, andmore.

If you lack enough gardening land in a sunny spot, no worries. There are so many choices for small-space gardeners. If you have a rooftime, balcony, or patio, you can also start these edibles in containers. Frankly, some of us just prefer container gardening!

Many dwarf-sized plantsbear diminutive fruit as well but will make up for the smaller size in the great quantity they produce, while others manage to bear full-sized fruits on a much smaller scale than normal plants. Either way you will enjoy a good harvest while saving precious garden space.

CherryTomatoes

Cherry tomatoes are a must-have for your small-space garden. These tiny treasures can be grown one plant per 12-inchpot or in hangingbaskets.

• How about this for a name?‘Baby Boomer’cherry tomatoesare perfect for the patio.Wildly prolific, each determinate bush unleashes a bumper crop of 300 one-inch one-ounce little sweeties bursting with great big flavor. GROWING TIP: Plants call forcaging.
• ‘Patio Choice’ (see below image) gives you the choice of red or yellow fruiting plants. Yellow fruits are 1 inch across and the plants are 18 inches tall. Red fruits are a littlelarger.

‘Patio Choice’ Yellow CherryTomatoes

• ‘Sweet ‘n’ Neat’ bears clusters of 1-inch red cherry tomatoes on a plant that grows to be only 10 inches tall. Starts bearing fruit in only 48 days fromtransplanting.
• For an even larger cherry, try ‘Totem’. Its red fruits are 2 ½ inches across and each 18- to 30-inch tall plant can bear up to 10 lbs. ofthem!

Bush TomatoVarieties

You are not restricted to growing only cherry-size tomatoes. There are plenty of bush varieties that don’t take up a lot of room but still bear large fruits. Plant one in a 5-gallon or largerpot.

• ‘Atlas’ is a hybrid beefsteak that grows only 2 to 3 feet tall but bears gorgeous 1-pound fruits 65 days from transplanting. It is good for container growing or put it right in the ground. Give it a wire cage for support and standback!
• Look for anything with “bush” in its name. We grow ‘Bush Blue Ribbon’, ‘Bush Early Girl’ and ‘Bush Goliath’ in large nursery pots every year, positioning them around the edge of the driveway to take advantage of the day-long sun there. All three grow to a manageable size that can be corralled in a regular tomato cage and bear early, medium-sizedtomatoes.

Lettuce

Lettuce is the most practical container plant. They don’t need a lot of root space so a 6- to 8-inch deep pot works great or plant them around the edge of a larger container, leaving room in the middle for a pepper or tomato. Leaf lettuces can be harvested as a cut-and-come-again crop by snipping off the outer leaves as needed and letting the rest of the plant continue togrow.

Choose a variety of colors and textures for an interesting saladmix.

• If you want to harvest whole heads, look for ‘Little Gem’, a mini-romaine that forms a single-serving sized 4-inch wide head in only 35 days. The small green heads areperfect for individual salads, and its firm upright habit makes it great for sandwiches aswell.

‘Little Gem’Lettuce

Eggplant

Eggplant is not only a delicious edible, but a pretty plant as well,with its purple flowers and velvety leaves. Plant one in a 2-gallon pot and grow it right out front alongside theornamentals.

‘Patio Baby’Eggplant

• ‘Patio Baby’ grows 18 to 24 inches tall and forms lots of lovely little 2- to 3-inch long tender purple fruits in 50days.
• ‘Fairy Tale’ has larger 2-inchwide by 4-inchlong fruits that are lavender with white stripes. Forming clusters of 4-6 fruitsin 50 days, they are as eye-catching as they are delicious. The plants reach between18 and24 inchestall.

Peppers

Whether you like your peppers hot or sweet, they make great container plants. Use any 8-inchor deeper pots you have, one plant per 2 gallons ofsoil.

• ‘Tangerine Dream’ bears 3-inchlong, sweet orange peppers on an 18-inchtall plant in 70 days. We grew this one last year for the first time and loved itsflavor.
• ‘Mini-Belle Mix’ offers multicolored little 1¼ by 1¼ inch sweet bell peppers that ripen to red, orange, or yellow in 60 days. Plants are only 24inchestall.
• ‘Sweet Heat’ bears mildly spicy 3- to 4-inch long fruits on a 12-inchtall plant in 56days.
• ‘Thai Hot’ is as pretty as it is prolific, dripping with bright red 3-inch long HOT peppers. The plants are only 16 inches tall and start to bear fruit in only 40days.

Carrots

Who knew you could grow carrots in a container? Use a very deep one, 12 inches or more, if you are planning on long roots otherwise try these true baby carrots. They’ll need a 6- to 8-inch deep pot. (Once you have mastered carrots, give other root crops like radishes and beets ago.)

‘Thumbelina’ carrots need nopeeling.

• ‘Adelaide’ grows only 3 to 4 inches long in 50days.
• ‘Little Finger’ reaches 3 to 5 inches long in 62days.
• ‘Parisian Market’ and ‘Thumbelina’ form round carrots in 50 to 70days.

Squash andCucumbers

Squash and cukes are usually out of the question for a small garden, but these varieties have been bred to stay bushy and not take over. Plant one each in a 5-gallon or larger container and encourage the vining types to grow up atrellis.

• ‘Butterbaby’ is a mini butternut squash that bears 1- to 1½-lb. tan fruits on short vines in 100 days. Since the single-serving-size fruits are so lightweight, the vines can be grown on a trellis to saveroom.
• ‘Honey Bear’ acorn squash is another small, single-serving-size winter squash that weighs only 1 to 1 ¼ lbs. each. The plants are compact and bushy and bear in 85days.
• ‘Pick-A-Bushel’ is a semi-bush cucumber with 2-footlong vines that can be encouraged to climb a trellis. Each plant bears between 18 and 20 3- to 5-inchpickling cukes in 50days.

For slicing cucumbers, look for old standbyslike:

• ‘Spacemaster’ was developed at Cornell in 1980 and is still popular with home gardeners today. It bears 7- to 8-inch long cukes on 3-foot vines in 60days.
• ‘Salad Bush’ the 1998 AAS winningcuke bears 8-inchtender-skinned fruits on24-inchvines.
• ‘Fanfare’ isa 1994 AAS winner that bears 9-inchlong cukes on 24- to 30-inch long vines in 63days.

‘Salad Bush’ cucumbers take up little space when grown in a container with atrellis.

See more plant choice in our article, “Dwarf and Mini-Vegetables for Containers.”