Gardening is a very rewarding activity. However, if you’ve never planted a garden before, it’s hard to know exactly where to start. Especially when it comes to deciding what to plant!
For first-time gardeners, it’s best to stick with a few basic greens for the first year. By gardening this way, it will allow you to learn the ins and outs of gardening without worrying about special produce that requires extra attention.
So what exactly should you be growing in your garden? Here is a list of ten crops that are generally easy to grow and should be garden staples.
- Tomatoes – It goes without saying that every garden should have at least one tomato plant. Even if you’re just growing in a container, plant a cherry tomato. Fresh tomatoes have a flavor you’ll never find in one from the grocery store. Once you’ve grown up, you’ll never want to eat anything else!
- sweet corn – Summer and Corn on the Cob – What could be better? Cook your family a big pot of fresh corn on the cob or cook it in the shell on the grill.
- carrots – Carrots have to be one of the simplest crops to grow. Just make a furrow, drop the tiny seeds, and wait for the tips of the fern-carrots to stick out of the ground. You will want to thin them out after they reach a few inches tall. If you don’t thin them, your carrots will be too skinny! Give them space to grow thinking.
- Peppers – Like tomatoes, peppers are easy to grow and very showy. If you don’t have a large garden, throw a couple of pepper plants in a container or mix them in with your flower. They’re beautiful to look at and add a bit of flavor to your diet, too!
- pumpkins – Pumpkins now take up a lot of space because they spread out. But if you have kids, growing their own pumpkin is so much fun! They will enjoy going to the garden and checking on Jack’s progress throughout the summer. You might even get a little yard work out of them!
- Pumpkin – Like pumpkins, pumpkins take up space due to the vine-like nature of plants. But pumpkin is a delicious summer food, so you’ll want to plant one or two. Don’t plant too many because they produce well. You may be leaving zucchini on the neighbor’s porch if you plant a lot!
- cucumbers – This is another vegetable that is a perfect treat for summer. Freshly picked cucumbers are refreshing on a hot summer day. Also, if you plant enough, you can make pickles!
- Peas – That’s right, just plain green peas. Peas are great for planting because they are ready to be harvested sooner than most other plants. So you can enjoy delicious fresh peas before everything else is ripe! But be careful, the peas are small. You think there are a lot of peas planted in the garden until you start shelling them!
- potatoes – On the other hand of peas, we have potatoes that are not ready to harvest until after the first frost. If you plant red potatoes, you can dig them earlier as smaller red potatoes are often preferred.
- beets – Red beets are another root crop like carrots. They are very easy to grow, and just like red potatoes, you can start harvesting them early if you prefer to eat them small.
Please note that this list is a suggestion. Don’t grow anything that you or your family won’t eat. It just isn’t worth your time and effort. If you grow vegetables that your family likes to eat, then gardening will be more enjoyable for the whole family.
