Having your own vivacious vegetable garden is the pride and joy of many a home owner. Vegetables grown in your back garden always taste sweeter than the store bought varieties. However, getting that green abundance of deliciousness to grow, can prove a challenging task, especially for beginner gardeners.
So what are some of the easiest vegetables to grow in your garden? Let’s take a closer look:
Lettuce
With many varieties of lettuce available, you’ll be pleased to know that this delicious addition to your salad is easy to grow at home. Seeds are inexpensive but you can also buy lettuce plants that are already formed. Some supermarkets even sell ‘living lettuce’ which you can immediately use in your salad or plant in the ground! As a cool weather plant, lettuce handles the cold well and is best planted in spring or fall.
Spinach
Like lettuce, spinach is another green, leafy vegetable that is very easy to grow at home. Be sure to plant your spinach in loose, well-draining soil with plenty of compost. Spinach is a great plant for beginners to grow as it does well in both shade and sun and works best is sown from seed. As another vegetable that doesn’t mind the cold, spinach also grows year round.
Bell Peppers
Bell peppers are best grown from a plant that has already been nurtured at a nursery. These plants do best in the full summer sun and will die off in the winter months. Bell peppers change colour as they ripen and you know your bell peppers are ready to eat when they turn a bright, waxy green, red or yellow, obviously depending on what colour pepper you planted.
Tomatoes
Home grown tomatoes are simply the best, no matter whether you are growing yellow tomatoes, mini tomatoes or purple Cherokees. You can eat them in a salad, snack on them while playing real money games or add them to pastas, stews or even stir fries. Tomatoes grow very easily from seed and do have a tendency to even seed themselves if you have other tomato plants around or make your own compost. Tomatoes do best in full sunlight and soil that drains well, and like bell peppers they don’t like the cold. Tomato plants that turn yellow could do with a sprinkling of bone meal.
Green Beans
Green beans grow very easily from seeds, but need space to grow as they typically run on vines. Placing the seeds next to a trellis will make it easier to grow and pick the beans. Bush beans are also available if you don’t want to have to deal with the vines. Green beans do well in moderate sun and well-drained soil, with a healthy dose of compost. The great news is that if you have a good harvest of beans, they can be easily frozen and eaten later.
Green/Spring Onions
Green or spring onions grow very well from immature bulbs or seedlings. They can be planted very close together as they don’t take up a lot of place or sprawl. You can harvest them at a variety of stages, opting for the greener leaves for salads and seasoning or waiting for the bulbs to mature if you want to get more of the onion flavour. Green onions do well in raised beds or pots and can even be planted in and around other vegetables and flowers.