Minimal space? Try planting mini vegetables! From basil, to tomatoes, to peppers, there's plenty of mini vegetables for every gardener.
10 Mini Vegetables That Are Adorable AND Edible
Published on Jan. 30, 2025
Lizzano Tomato
If you are looking for a classic cherry tomato for a container of mini vegetables on your patio, try Lizzano. This variety produces fruit over a long period and is resistant to late blight. In a container on the ground, it will need a cage or other support, but it also does well in a large hanging basket where it can hang down from the edges.
Start seeds indoors six to eight weeks before your first frost-free date or buy plants in late spring. Harden off seedlings by placing them outside in shade for a few hours a day when temperatures are above 60. Plant seedlings in the container once there is no risk of frost.
Quickfire Pepper
Round out your mini veggie collection with a hot Thai-type pepper called Quickfire. An All-America Selections winner from 2022, it produces hot peppers on smaller plants and is perfect for containers. The hot peppers show above the foliage so they are easy to harvest. Some gardeners wonder if sweet peppers turn hot when grown next to hot peppers, but they don’t. Growing different pepper varieties near each other won’t affect the taste of either one.
Start seeds inside six to eight weeks before your first frost-free date or buy plants in late spring. Place seedlings outside in shade for a few hours a day when temperatures are above 60 to harden off. Once there is no risk of frost, plant seedlings in their container.
Cal Sweet Bush Watermelon
You may think there is no way you can grow a watermelon in a container, but you can! Cal Sweet Bush is a compact bush-type plant with short vines that performs quite well in containers. Let it grow all summer and you’ll have your own homegrown watermelon in about 90 days.
Grow it in full sun and keep it watered throughout the summer. Sow seeds directly outside in a large container. Thin to one seedling—choose the strongest one—by carefully pulling out the other seedlings.
Emerald Towers Basil
Emerald Towers is a tall basil plant that grows almost straight up, making it a good accent plant in a container with other edibles. Plus, it’s slow to produce flowers, which allows you to harvest its leaves for most of the growing season. The plants don’t need a large container to grow in, but they should be watered regularly.
Start seeds indoors four to five weeks before your first frost-free date or buy plants in late spring. When temperatures are above 60, place seedlings outside in shade for a few hours to harden off. Once there is no risk of frost, plant seedlings in their container. Or direct sow seeds in pots outdoors after your garden is frost-free.
Mascotte Green Bean
Like many beloved veggies, this one tastes best when it’s freshly picked. If you are low on space but want to grow beans, try Mascotte, a dwarf type that produces beans up to 5 inches long. Its mature height is about 20 inches. Keep picking the beans as they mature, which takes about 50 days from sowing, and the plants should keep flowering and produce more beans for several weeks.
Sow seeds directly in containers when the possibility of frost has passed, spacing the seeds according to the instructions on the packet. The seeds should germinate within a few days.
Katarina Cabbage
It’s surprising how big a cabbage plant can get and how much better homegrown cabbage tastes. Try Katarina, which produces a small, tasty head of cabbage and grows well in large containers. This cabbage tolerates light frost, so you can get an early start by putting it outside a few weeks before your last frost. Mature cabbage heads should be ready to harvest in about six weeks.
Sow seeds indoors four to six weeks before transplanting outdoors or buy transplants in early spring. To keep cabbage butterfly larvae from eating the leaves, use a lightweight floating row cover.
Patio Baby Eggplant
Even if you usually don’t like eggplant, grow this dwarf variety and try cooking the small, tasty eggplants it produces. Because the plants top out at less than 2 feet tall, they do well in large containers placed in full sun. A unique feature of this eggplant variety is that it doesn’t have thorns on the leaves or the calyx (that green cap where the eggplant attaches to the plant itself). This is a big plus at harvest time.
Start seeds indoors six to eight weeks before your frost-free date or purchase plants in late spring. Harden off seedlings by placing them outside in shade for a few hours a day when temperatures are above 60. Plant seedlings in their pot once there is no risk of frost.
Patio Choice Yellow Tomato
Cherry tomatoes may be small, but that’s not true of all cherry tomato plants. Patio Choice Yellow is a smaller plant that does well on a patio in a pot. To keep your tomatoes (and all mini vegetables in containers) healthy, fertilize them regularly with a liquid fertilizer.
Start seeds indoors six to eight weeks before your first frost-free date or buy plants in late spring. Harden off seedlings by placing them outside in shade for a few hours a day when temperatures are above 60 degrees. Plant seedlings in their container once there is no risk of frost.
Pot-a-peno Pepper
Pot-a-peno is a jalapeno-type pepper that grows well in a pot or a hanging basket from which it can cascade down the sides. You can pick the peppers while green or let them ripen to red. Not only will the color change, but the flavor will too. Try them both ways!
Start seeds indoors six to eight weeks before your first frost-free date or buy plants in late spring. Harden off seedlings by placing them outside in shade for a few hours a day when temperatures are above 60. Plant seedlings in their container once the risk of frost has passed.
Patio Snacker Cucumber
Patio Snacker is a dwarf vegetable variety that you can grow in a large container. Cucumber plants are vines, so add a small trellis to give them something to climb up. The big surprise is that this plant, although smaller than most cucumber plants, produces larger cucumbers, up to 7 to 8 inches long, in 50 days or so. Keep picking the cucumbers to encourage the vine to keep flowering.
Most cucumbers produce separate male and female flowers and need bees to pollinate them, but Patio Snacker does not need insect pollination. Sow seeds directly outside in a large container. Thin to one or two seedlings by carefully pulling out the other seedlings or by cutting off the extra seedlings at soil level.
Quick Tips for Growing Mini Vegetables
- If your only growing space is a sunny windowsill or a small table outdoors, “tabletop vegetables” may be your best option. Kitchen Minis from PanAmerican Seed were bred to be grown in small containers. Several varieties of sweet peppers, hot peppers and cherry tomatoes are available now.
- You can grow Peas-in-a-Pot on your patio too. Bred for containers and small space gardens, it’s a 10- inch plant with a good yield.
- Choose mini vegetables you already love to eat. Maybe try one or two you don’t typically prefer and see if you like the homegrown version.
- Check the plant’s mature size. Dwarf, mini, compact and ultra compact are all terms used to describe smaller veggie plants.
- Read the label to determine the mature size so you won’t be surprised. Find out how big the veggies will be at harvest time. Some dwarf plants produce much smaller vegetables, while others grow vegetables that are almost full size.
- Don’t limit yourself to just vegetable plants labeled as dwarf, compact, mini, etc. Also look for full-size varieties—which may be naturally smaller plants to begin with—that are described as growing well in containers.
- Finally, choose a few varieties of mini vegetables that you can eat as you pick them. Nothing is better than a fresh, sun- warmed cherry tomato right off the vine.
Sources
- Territorial Seed Company – Lizziano
- All-America Selections – Pepper Quickfire F1
- Burpee – Basil, Emerald Towers
- Burpee – Bean, Mascotte
- All-America Selections – Cabbage Katarina F1
- Burpee – Eggplant, Patio Baby Hybrid
- All-America Selections – Tomato Patio Choice Yellow F1
- All-America Selections – Pepper Pot-a-peno F1
- Burpee Home Gardens – Patio Snacker
- PanAmerican Seed – Edible Potted Cucumber Quick Snack
- Micro Food Gardening: Project Plans and Plants for Growing Fruits and Veggies in Tiny Spaces, written by Jennifer McGuinness
About the Expert
Josh Kirschenbaum is the seed supply manager with PanAmerican Seed. He has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Ohio University and has served as a board member with the National Garden Bureau.
