I never tried any of them inside, but we tried a green pepper plant in a large pot twice in the greenhouse. It stayed alive, but gave us no peppers. Maybe if you had full sun all day long inside you might be able to grow something. Indoors is so different than outdoors.

Tomatoes need a lot of light. I don't think you will get fruit on tomatoes without going to a lot of trouble with the lighting. Anything that sets fruit of any kind will be a real challenge.

Lettuce and spinach might work in a very sunny window. If you can put a lamp on them as well, it may help keep them from getting leggy. Use fluorescent or LED bulbs to avoid overheating. Put the bulb pretty close to the plants.

--McKenzie

You could try the growing under lights forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing under Lights

You can extend your spinach growing season outdoors by covering the bed with straw. Spinach is very hardy. It stops growing during the dark days of winter but it's there for harvesting if it got a good start in late summer/early fall.

You can continue to harvest carrots outdoors if you cover with straw.

We're still learning about our high tunnel. About to go into second winter here in NH. It depends on what you consider expensive. I think my husband built ours for about $800. A lot of the expense was the greenhouse plastic. So far, here in NH I still have Asian green, spinach, lettuce etc growing. It gets as cold inside at night as outside but heats up during the day so ground doesn't freeze. Tender plants like tomatoes and peppers died once it got below 20 and flavor of tomatoes once it got cold wasn't very good.

I've got a volunteer currant tomato that I brought inside, mainly to harvest the cilantro seeds that it had popped up next to, and it's actually doing pretty well and has set a small amount of fruit. It did have a decent start outside before it got cold though.

I also brought all my container peppers inside to keep the peppers fresh while we harvest them gradually. Then I'm going to prune them back a bit and try to overwinter them to get a start on next year. Not expecting any fruit except what's already set on them however. Some of them have some baby fruits, and I'm not even entirely sure they'll mature. I only have late afternoon sun through a west window, and I'm not wasting my light setup on them, so my hopes aren't high.

I'm going to try some lettuce and radishes under the lights this winter. I have four shop florescents with cheap bulbs and two official "grow lights". Also considering micro greens and sprouts, I hear broccoli and radishes and things make some yummy sprouts! Probably start some herbs in December. I brought my tender perennial herbs inside as well as some hardier ones that I'm going to try and divide for the plant swap in the spring.

I think anything is possible with the right investment of time and more importantly money, but is it worthwhile? Probably not for a heavy grower like tomatoes. You said you wanted to stay away from elaborate and expensive, so I would say greens and herbs are your best choice. Jury's still out on radishes :)

I don't grow vegetables in the house during winter but to take the edge of the "gardening jones" I sometimes do sprouts. Some favorites besides alfalfa are radish sprouts and buckwheat spouts and pea sprouts. It's relatively cheap, the freshness can't be beat, and there is almost no wait between starting your seeds and harvesting your sprouts. Cheers!

I have grown lettuce and basil inside over the winter. I grow them from seed under florescent lights, the same way I start seed in the spring to transplant. (Simple set up - an inexpensive 2-tube shoplight hanging over a shelving unit.) I also bring in my containers of rosemary and parsley to overwinter under the lights. They don't do great (esp. the rosemary) but it gives me fresh herbs through the winter, which is a treat.

Me and Sunni are birds of a feather but let me recommend sunflower and pea for shoots, grown by a sunny window in seedling trays filled with compost (you can reuse the compost, all shot through with roots, after you are done cropping). 2 weeks from seeding to harvest. For shoots in jars, I no longer like alfalfa, as they get some infections. I prefer fenugreek, broccoli and radish. One week to crop, and they can be cleaned easily (the shells are always a problem), broccoli and radish more than fenugreek. Nothing else is worth growing in winter, there is not enough sunshine.

I haven't had sprouts in ages! Do the broc sprouts have a broc taste and do the radish sprouts have a tang? Intriguing! Nancy

yes, radish are spicy. broccoli are a bit spicy too. Not really like broccoli more like a mild radish.

I haven't tried fenugreek, mainly because I don't really like the taste of fenugreek seeds themselves. But this thread got me thinking, what if I could mix a bunch of sprouts, making a melange of tastes. Like adding in some fennel seed, or corriander with radish and buckwheat... A tiny salad mix? Buckwheat sprouts taste sort of like slightly lemony lettuce. Well and there's a thought, why not some lettuce sprouts? I can sense that I'll be digging out my sprouting equipment soon. :)

You'd only want to sprout things together that would be ready on the same day, or possibly within a day of each other, but this could be easily arranged by starting ones that take longer a few days earlier. Sounds like fun to me!

I have peppers (both habanero and sweet bells) that are covered with flowers trying to set fruit. I'm not sure about whether its a good idea to hand pollinate them, but the plants seem to think it would be a good time to grow some new peppers!

Agree that sprout mixing can be done only in the salad bowl. For that purpose, time your starts accordingly. In my case it does not matter, I will eat fenugreek only the first day, fenugreek-broccoli the next two, and broccoli the last.

Mixing in the sprouting jar does not work. Lettuce, as well as arugula, is best grown in compost trays, as a shoot. Re; fenugreek, it is a bit bitter, and cleans only moderately well because the skins become gooey and stick to the sprouts.

Glib
will you post pics or make a video to show you doing the sprouts etc....???
I got lots of seed, sprouting kind too. Just need to visualize
thanks
Jean

I've grown Red Robin cherry tomatoes indoors from seed to fully ripe. Yield was no different than ones grown outside. Started them under lights, but once they were good and sturdy, they went in a south window.

Herbs grown indoors under lights aren't as strongly flavoured as those outdoors, but it's still something nice in the dead of winter. I haven't tried any greens yet. Like the pea shoots idea. :)

Sure. But I don't sprout now, with the garage full of roots and collards and kale in the garden. I do it mostly January-April.

To sprout things, you need SPROUTING JARS. These are regular jars with a cap made of mosquito screen. One quart jar will take about two tbsp of dry seed. Cover with water, wait one day so the seeds puff up, pour the water out. Leave the jar with the cap down, near your sink, and every day pour water in, drain, and put down again (this operation literally takes five seconds).

They will make it in relatively low light conditions, no need to do it on a sunny window. Sprouts from smaller seeds are ready in 6-8 days. Larger seeds like sunflower take longer, but I only grow these as shoots in seedling trays full of compost, where they take 12-14 days. You can comfortably crop a jar or a tray for three days in a row.

Jean, here is a website with tons of information and videos (and supplies to sell you if you're of the mind). They do have a couple of seed mixes, so I guess you can do it while sprouting, but I was talking about mixing after the sprouts were grown. :) Cheers!

Here is a link that might be useful: How to grow sprouts

Oh good, sunnibel provided the link i was going to suggest. You might want to try micro greens to the leaf stage in a soilless mix like vermiculite. Two split trays. But you do need a southern exposure. I even use some extra grow lights on a timer and a small fan for some air circulation. Some herbs do well this way. I have a small 6x6ft greenhouse that now gets good sun with the leaves off the trees now, but not sure if i'll spent the time trying anything through the winter. I use it in the early spring to help get things 'garden ready'.
What i miss most during NEast winters are the salads and greens. Planting a half tray of micro greens 5-7 days apart can be quite satisfying. I can get a nice buttery boston red lettuce head locally and decent baby arugula but much more satisfying growing at least something on my own.

I have a huge beet in a pot that I harvest beet greens from...they love lots of water. I also have two celery plants that I harvest from. 3 different pepper plants. They do make peppers just fine, but smaller, and they take alot of time. Once they start to ripen tho, they really take off. My two tomatoes are grape cluster types. Trick I learned from experimenting with tomatoes: In the fall take a cutting from your mother plant out in the garden. Cuttings grow much better inside than a seed started one...don't ask me why. My tomatoes are only about a foot high and covered with yellow blooms right now. Swiss Chard grows great inside, as well as Kale and pak choi. Lettuce...not so much. Maybe if you had really good lighting, but then harvest would be a one time thing, I would think. Spinach grows, but not vigorously. Broccoli grows well for eating the greens but won't form a head. Radish, same thing...good for the greens but they like lots of light to form a tuber. This year I'm trying a cucumber. So far so good, the vine is about 2 feet long.

runswithscissors: You got me. Must know how you go about doing this. I'm not into the hoop gardening because I would have no help in doing this, but if it is a flourescent deal which I have set up under lights in a 50 degree garage, it tweeks my interest intensely. Give me the details--and you are in a colder zone which would help. Barb

Well, my suggestion doesn't meet the test of being inexpensive, but it's a lot less complicated to set up than many others you've gotten. I got the late fall gardening jones bad last year, so I told my family that the only I wanted for Christmas was an Aerogarden. I used mine in my small, windowless office at work to grow herbs. In about 8 weeks, I was able to harvest six different herbs. People grow dwarf peppers and tomatoes as well as greens in them. It's a lot if fun for a small investment in time.