Gardeners and would-be gardeners are seeing the wisdom in harvesting vegetables fresh from the home garden. They have visions of a garden bed loaded with gorgeous produce for their families. What sometimes stops the dream from becoming a reality is huge variety of vegetables to choose from.
It can be a challenge to know where to start and what to plant in order to get from seed to harvest successfully. The best vegetables to start with are the plants that are the easiest to plant, grow, and harvest.
While it’s true that there can be garden pests and diseases, they’re seen in very small numbers in the home garden, so this shouldn’t discourage beginning gardeners from planting vegetables. The following list includes some of the simplest plants for beginners to tend to in a garden.
Easy-to-Grow Vegetables
- Tomatoes – These are the darlings of the home vegetable garden. Not only are they a favorite of gardeners everywhere, they’re a terrific first garden plant. Tomatoes can take full-on heat and there’s a variety available for every climate. Home grown tomatoes are especially flavorful compared to their store-bought counterparts. Surprisingly few plants are needed to produce a high yield of fruit and they’re particularly easy to grow in containers. This comes in handy for gardeners who like to grow tomatoes near a kitchen door.
- Radishes – Radishes are among the simplest vegetables to grow. They germinate easily and don’t have any particular needs to speak of. Radishes mature so quickly that they can be planted in succession over a long season for a bumper crop for the radish-lovers in the family. They’re also well-suited for growing with carrots as they are being harvested just as carrot seedlings require thinning.
- Lettuce – Leafy salad greens are easy to care for and mature incredibly fast. Gardeners can plant lettuce seeds and harvest them for the dinner table in a month. Lettuce is typically a cool-weather crop. However, plant breeders have come up with warm weather varieties making them virtually a year-round vegetable. Versatile lettuce tolerates nearly any type of soil and its reliability makes it a crop that’s easy to experiment with.
- Potatoes – These are not only easy to grow but fun to harvest, as well. Root crops can be harvested year round and stored for months. Potatoes can be planted in tall pots or a stack of old tires for maximum potato harvest. They’re another crop that children love to harvest as they have to dig around in the soil to find the tubers.
- Cucumbers – Vegetables in the cucurbit family are ridiculously easy to grow. Gardeners will find themselves giving away cucumbers from their garden by the armload. Cucumbers love the heat and the trailing varieties will grow wonderfully over up compost cages and over trellises.
- Carrots – Carrots are indispensable in the kitchen garden. While their seeds make take longer than others to germinate, carrots aren’t hard to care for and are fun to grow. There are many carrot varieties to choose from and they come in a rainbow of colors. If the garden bed soil isn’t loamy and deep, there are the stumpy types of carrots that can be grown instead of the traditional tapered type. For the most part, the gardener should keep the tiny seeds watered evenly while they’re germinating. After that, what’s important for carrots is to keep weeds out of their beds so they don’t have to compete for space. Root crops like carrots are always a favorite kids’ job at harvest time.
- Green beans – Green beans come in bush-types and climbing types. The climbers can be used to grow up a handful of poles that have been tied together at the top. This forms a living tee-pee that not only adds vertical interest, but is fun in a childrens garden.
- Peppers – From bell to chili, hot to mild; peppers are an exceptionally easy crop to grow. Peppers come in a wonderful assortment of colors – even lavender and purple. They add vibrant color to the garden.
- Squash – This is one of the most useful and healthy vegetable families and an easy plant for the gardener. There are summer squashes and winter squashes like spaghetti squash. All are used for baking, stuffing and soups. Of course, pumpkins work over-time by playing double-duty both as a delicious food and as a holiday ornamental.
- Herbs – Herbs in the vegetable garden or in their own herb bed make fantastic first plants. Once established, most herbs require little watering. They do well in poor soils but do like a well-draining one. There are a wide array of colors, shapes, textures, scents, and flavors for the gardener to choose from. These simple herbs add interest to the garden while adding flavor in the kitchen.
Through successful gardening experiences, new gardeners gain the confidence to plant additional varieties in their vegetable garden.