If you want to plant your own kitchen garden, you should start with vegetables. For beginners, it’s helpful to know which vegetables are the easiest to grow to ensure success.
You’ll be amazed by how juicy and sweet a garden-fresh vegetable is, you’ve never tasted one. They’re also healthier and free from chemicals (provided you don’t use harsh chemicals in your gardening).
If you don’t have any experiences growing your own fruits or vegetables, don’t worry, we got you covered! We have a list of the best vegetables to grow for beginner gardeners.
So ready your tools and let’s start planting!
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Best Vegetables to Grow for Beginners
Perfect for new home gardeners, here’s the list of the easiest vegetables to plant in your garden: Whether you have full sun, partial shade, or you have limited space for container gardens.
Arugula
Arugula is easy to grow. You can literally throw some seeds in pots or in the ground, water them, and it will be ready to be harvested in 30 days!
Since Arugula is a fast-growing cool-season crop, you can grow them in your garden from September until May. During the winter season, you can also grow these leafy greens in your cold frame or greenhouse.
Kale
Kale is super nutritious — plus, it can be easily grown in a raised bed and/or containers.
If the climate is cold, you can grow them all year round. These veggies turn sweeter when the temperature gets colder.
Lettuce
There’s nothing better than freshly picked salad greens and your own food from your garden. Like other great vegetables on the list, this leafy green vegetable can grow well in a container or a pot as well as in the ground.
It can also grow quickly: In just 4 weeks, you can start harvesting the leaves. You can also grow leaf lettuce all year round. Lettuce is a good choice also because you can cut some today and tomorrow and so forth and it will keep producing more leaves quickly.
Carrot
Carrots do well in loose, sandy soil and can be grown in a small space, even in a 5-gallon bucket. Just mix some sand and organic matter with the soil in the bucket or in your garden beds, and you can start growing them from seeds.
A lot of beginners find their carrots to be short and deformed: This is due to rocky, poor soil so always provide soft, loose well-drained soil. Allow at least 2 inch distance in between the carrots for proper spacing so they won’t be overcrowded.
Radish
Like carrots, radishes are beginner-friendly when it comes to vegetable gardening.
Radishes can be harvested as quickly as 3 to 5 weeks after planting, plus, it can be inter-planted with slower growing root vegetables.
Since radishes are natural companions to carrots you can do succession planting. You can mix radish seeds with carrot seeds before you sow in loose soil with good soil moisture. As the quick-to-sprout radishes push up through the soil and you harvest them, the carrots will fill in the row.
Squash
Squashes are fun crop for first time gardeners to grow and experiment with. There are also several varieties that are easy to grow.
They come in a large range of sizes and shapes, and they’re all straightforward to grow from seed. Just remember they have a deadly nemesis – the Squash Vine Borer – you can read more here <– to make sure you’re prepared.
Beets
Colorful, compact, and trouble-free to grow, beets or beetroot, are essential addition to a vegetable garden — even if you’re a beginner.
If you enjoy eating fresh vegetable salads or roasting them as a side dish, beets should be added to your plant list.
To grow beets, you need to plant the seeds in a sunny position as the young plants do not like to be transplanted. As it begins to grow, it is a good idea to space out the seedling to around 3 to 4 inches apart.
It will only take you two months to be able to start harvesting your beets. A ready to be harvested, full size beet will bulge above the surface of the soil.
Green Beans
Delicious, versatile, and generous yielders, green beans are one of the easiest vegetables to grow.
You can choose from growing them directly from the bush, which is more compact; or thru poles, which are more space efficient as the beans will grow vertically. You will be able to start harvesting them in 50-60 days.
Bush beans usually put on all their beans at once, where pole beans will continue to produce, just continue to harvest them so they keep putting on new beans.
Swiss Chard
Swiss chard, or known simply as chard, is a member of the beet family. They’re easy to grow, look lovely in a vegetable garden, and pack a flavorful punch to any side dish. It’s also a superfood and is rich in Vitamins C, A, and K, as well as fiber, minerals, and phytonutrients.
You can begin planting Swiss chard in the spring at least 2 to 3 weeks before the last frost date and during the fall, about 40 days before the last frost date. The plants make fantastic cut-and-come-again leaves, and will be ready to harvest within 10-12 weeks.
Cucumbers
Before you start planting cucumbers, prepare in advance: Put fertilizer high in nitrogen and potassium in the soil to support its large yield and to promote healthy soil with good drainage.
When planting cucumbers, place them next to a fence or trellis of some kind. This fence can act as a support for climbing and as a shelter for the plant. You can also plant them during early spring near corn as the corn will trap the heat that cucumbers crave and also serve as a windbreak.
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These easy vegetables are quick to grow, but there are also a lot more vegetables you can plant in your own vegetable garden!
What’s the best vegetables to plant for first-time gardeners that you think we should try? Do you have a favorite vegetable that you can recommend for new gardeners?
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