How To Grow Arugula Indoors

For those looking for a delicious and easy-to-grow vegetable to grow in their indoor garden consider giving Arugula a try. This leafy green has its own unique flavor and is the perfect addition to any salad lover’s garden. In this article, we’ll break down everything needed to grow it, and by the end, you’ll see just how simple it can be.

Reasons To Grow Arugula Indoors

Before we look at care, let’s take a minute to look at some of the benefits of growing arugula indoors.

Fast growth

First off, arugula is a fast grower, and that leads to the potential for multiple harvests per year. Once planted, you can sometimes harvest arugula in as soon as 20 days! While that’s exceptionally fast, even average growing times only pushes that out to around 30 days, meaning you can harvest more and more often than many other plants.

Easy To Harvest

Arugula is also dead simple to harvest. We’ll touch more on the specifics below, but it amounts to simply snipping the leaves, giving them a quick wash, and enjoying.

Small Profile

Arugula also grows well in both small and big spaces alike. Whether you have a small container, or wide open garden spaces, you have enough room to start this plant. The only difference is, obviously, how much you’ll be able to harvest.

Multiple Varieties

Lastly, there are several delicious arugula varieties available to grow. This gives you some options in taste and aesthetics. Here are a couple of our favorites:

Any of these varieties, as well as others, are great choices for indoor growing. In any case, the below care instructions will apply to almost any variety you choose with only slight differences in things like harvest times.

Container and Soil

The first step to growing any plant is to find an appropriate container and soil. Luckily, both of these are simple for arugula.

For the container, look for one about 6” deep and with the same or larger size diameter. Arugula is a shallow-root plant, so it doesn’t need a ton of depth. The wider your container is the more you’ll be able to grow. For that reason, I like to go with 12” diameter containers, but you’ll be perfectly fine with smaller. In any case, just make sure that your container has drainage holes to allow excess water to escape.

For soil, any sort of commercial potting soil will work perfectly well. You can go with vegetable-specific potting mixes, but this isn’t a requirement and I tend to avoid them for arugula as they are often more expensive.

Planting Arugula Seeds and Seedlings

Starting with Arugula seeds, sow them to about ¼” an inch deep and moisten the soil. You can be a bit generous in spreading them around for now as we’ll prune them back later once they sprout. Arugula seeds need light to germinate, so avoid covering them with too much soil and place them in a warm, sunny location.

It takes about 7-10 days for the seeds to germinate. Once they reach about 1-2” tall you can thin them out, I like to leave 1-2” between each sprout. Afterward, continue with normal care until they’re ready to harvest.

With seedlings, it’s even easier. Simply plant them in your chosen container again leaving about 2” between each plant. This often means you can add several to the same container for maximum yields.

Sunlight and Location

Arugula needs about 4-6 hours per day of bright, indirect light. You want to avoid the harshest light as this can fry the leaves and lead to yellowing and browning at the tips. Instead, keep them in an area that gets partial shade so that the plant has some respite from the sun. Morning or evening sun with afternoon shade tends to work well as this protects your plant from the most intense sun. As always, if you have trouble hitting these numbers adding grow lights is a good way to boost your plant’s light intake.

This also serves to extend your plant’s harvest time by reducing its propensity to bolt. We’ll talk about that more below.

Temperature

Arugula does best when kept at temperatures ranging from 60-70°F, which is perfect for most indoor gardens. You can go a few degrees outside this range, but do your best to limit the amount of temperature swings your plant experiences.

Too warm, and the plant is more likely to bolt. Once a plant bolts it tends to take on a more bitter flavor and become unusable for culinary purposes. Temperature swings, especially prolonged exposure to heat, are the leading cause of bolting in arugula.

Too cold, and your plant will slow in growth and eventually die. While arugula can survive some exposure to cold a hard frost will kill it in short order.

Watering and Feeding

Arugula has a shallow root system which means it needs consistent watering. You want to keep the soil evenly moist without letting the plant sit in too much water. In general, you’ll be watering roughly once every 2-5 days depending on how warm your area is.

To do this, stick your finger about an inch into the soil. If it’s dry, then give your plant a dose of water until you begin to see it slowly leak out of the container’s drainage holes. This is a good indicator that the soil is saturated and extra water is not needed.

For feeding, you can use balanced, general-purpose fertilizer once per month during the growing season. You can also use old coffee grounds as a low-cost fertilizer as their high nitrogen content is good for arugula.

Pruning and Harvesting

Once your plant produces leaves that reach about 4-6 inches in height it’s time to harvest. For most varieties, this will tend to be about 30 days after planting.

To harvest, simply snip the larger, outer leaves at the base leaving smaller leaves alone to continue growing. Avoid harvesting more than about ⅓ of the plant at once to ensure it has the strength to continue growing. When done correctly, expect to be able to harvest every 1-2 weeks.

As you harvest, you should also be on the lookout for any yellowing or dying leaves. Be sure to prune these back. Doing so helps ensure a healthy plant that is more resistant to pests and disease. Frequent harvest and pruning can also help prolong the plant’s harvestable life and prevent bolting.

Growing Arugula Indoors

Arugula is a fast-growing, easy-to-care-for veggie that is one of my favorites to grow indoors. Its unique flavor adds a lot of depth to salads and a variety of other dishes, and nothing quite beats the flavor when it’s freshly picked. As always, let us know if you have any questions, we love helping fellow gardeners grow the garden of their dreams.

Frequently Asked Questions