You don’t need to have a green thumb to grow fresh vegetables right in your garden or on your balcony. Whether you’re new to gardening or just want to start a garden with the least amount of time and effort, here are the (almost) foolproof best vegetables to grow.
Most gardening sites on the web agree on which vegetables are best for novice gardeners.
You can’t just throw these plants in the ground and walk out the door and hope they bloom and fruit, but depending on your space, they are the plants most likely to thrive for your vegetable garden.
Check out the seven easiest vegetables to grow for novice gardeners below:
1. Grow a simple salad
Good news! Some of the less fussy vegetables are the ones that are perfect for an instant, refreshing salad in the summer.
Lettuce grows quickly and is really easy to harvest (just cut off the tops of the plants or pick the leaves as needed) and takes up very little space. Salads can even be easily grown in containers, accompanied by flowers or hidden under taller plants. They can also be direct sown even in partially shaded areas.
2. Grow tomatoes
Perhaps the most popular vegetable and with any type of garden, tomatoes can be grown in hanging beds or other containers or anywhere they receive plenty of sunlight and have support for their stems. Seedlings purchased from nurseries are the easiest to grow.
If you plant basil next to tomato plants, it will naturally repel pests and even improve the flavor of tomatoes, and fortunately, like other herbs, basil is also easy to grow.
3. Growing cucumbers
Cucumbers love sunlight and warm temperatures, as well as support to climb. Thanks to their vertical growth, cucumbers grow well in containers. Once they are well established and you water them regularly, they grow almost like weeds. You’ll probably have enough cucumbers to donate to your neighbors.
Most root vegetables such as carrots, turnips and radishes are hardy and can be planted directly into the garden in early spring and left until autumn. The leaves can also be harvested as these plants grow. Green beans and zucchini are also easy to grow and quite prolific.
4. Grow carrots
Remember those school projects where you grew carrot leaves from their tops? Whole carrots are also fairly easy to grow in the ground. The only thing about carrots is that they may not be very big, especially if you have rocky soil. Deep, well-drained soil is preferable, a raised bed is a good idea. However, carrots are simple and fun to grow (your kids might even want to help). Carrots also tolerate light shade, although, like most plants, they prefer full sun.
5. Grow radishes
You can add radishes to a salad, but they are much more versatile than that, as snacks and side dishes. Even if not everyone likes them, once you see how easy they are to grow, you might want to add them to your garden. Additionally, they take only 20 days to reach their size and be harvested.
There’s a lot to love about these fast-growing and ridiculously easy-to-grow root vegetables. The seeds are large enough to be sown easily, either in a garden bed or in a container at least 15cm deep. They grow in sun or partial shade. And as long as you manage to water them before the soil dries out, you’ll be rewarded with lots of crunchy, tangy radishes. Plant more as you need it and you can grow radishes all season long.
6. Grow green beans
All types of green beans are ideal for gardens. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from and picking beans to harvest is quite fun. Shrub varieties require less space than vines. Both types grow easily from seeds. Most beans prefer full sun and well-drained soil.
7. Grow zucchini
Zucchini grow so prolifically that they are the butt of many gardening jokes. One or two plants should be enough for most people. The flowers are as delicious as the pumpkin.
Like beans and cucumbers, zucchini plants are prolific whether grown in containers or directly in hilly soil. Like beans and radishes, they grow easily from seeds. However, they need good moisture and prefer warm soil, so seeds are best sown later in the warm season (a good plant for gardening procrastinators).
With the seven vegetables above (or even a few of them), you’ll have the freshest plants possible to enjoy this summer without too much trouble. Hey, the more you farm, the more you grow.