Growing a spring vegetable garden

[marla]

I'm going to be growing a vegetable garden for the first time this year. I'm wondering what are the best vegetables to plant that are likely to survive even though I don't know what I'm doing and how many of each I should plant.

[PauletteGoddard]

I'm in the same position. I searched online for "easiest vegetables to grow in [My Climate Zone]", or "...[My City]." Then I searched online for my county's Extension Service, where Master Gardeners can be contacted and consulted. They love answering questions like yours.

[irmanator]

I'd say tomatoes and zucchini. My dog buried some potatoes and they grew so i'd say they are easy too.

[JBL]

zucchini are easy. Start seeds inside now and plant outside after last frost. Tomatos are easy too, and also can be started about now from seed.

The really easy vegitable is beans, green or wax beans. You just plant the seeds straight into the garden in a row, put up something sturdy for them to climb, and water. With practically no work I had lots of beans all summer.

Lettuce can be hard because if it rains sometimes they rot from the inside out.

[scfr]

I grew my first-ever little garden last year. Rainbow chard planted from seed was a huge success, definitely the best return on my investment. I staggered the planting so it did not all mature at once.

[cptacek]

I would say zucchini and spaghetti squash. Just give them room to grow! That is the main thing I learned last year in my first garden...it might not look like the small starts you first put out in the spring will actually take up the 2-4 feet that the label says to give them, but they will!

[GrimJack]

I heard that the best veggies to grow are lettuce and broccoli - they both can be planted early in the year and produce late into the fall. I think carrots might fit in there also

[herm4]

Also, garlic is super easy to grow along with your other veggies. Just put the cloves in the dirt and watch them grow!

[zetta]

I'd recommend tomatoes. They taste so much better than store-bought! You can buy a six-pack of plants for about $2.50 from Home Depot when it's the right time to plant in your area.

[LuckyRobin]

I've been gardening for ten years and by far the easiest things to grow are green beans, snow or sugar peas, herbs (except basil, it's picky), and radishes. If you get bush beans and bush peas you don't have to bother with staking, but if you want climbing beans or peas, making simple teepees with poles and planting three seeds on each pole works great.

[SnoopyCool]

We've grown tomatoes (better boys) and bell peppers with ease. We currently have corn, lettuce, cabbage, bell peppers, tomatoes, some variety of hot peppers for dh. Beets aren't hard. I believe you need a lot of space for green beans to get a good yield, but not sure. We always grew them when I was a kid but my parents canned them so we had tons that lasted until the next year. They would grow 3-4 rows, about 40' long.

[Slug]

Different bent to the same question. What's best vegetable to grow from an ROI basis, assuming you will eat all of the produce and sell none? Some things are expensive (red bell peppers) while others are dirt cheap (habaneros). I was thinking probably tomatoes and bell peppers. What are others?

[LuxLiving]

I don't have an answer for your ROI question...

But leaf lettuce is pretty easy to grow. Just snip off the tops when you want a salad and the roots will keep putting out leaves.

[cptacek]

I'm again going to go with zucchini and spaghetti squash. it just explodes all over the place. Some of those vines were over 20 feet long, with vegetables every foot or two!

[lgslgs]

Asparagus and eggplant are high value garden vegetable. So are green onions if you use them a lot.

Once you start a garden spot with perennial bunching onions you have an abundance of them them when you want them for years to come. For us that's been worth $50 a year, every year, all from a one time expense of part of a pack of seeds and twice a year weeding.


Lynda

[Gruntina]

Originally Posted by lgslgs

Asparagus and eggplant are high value garden vegetable. So are green onions if you use them a lot.

Once you start a garden spot with perennial bunching onions you have an abundance of them them when you want them for years to come. For us that's been worth $50 a year, every year, all from a one time expense of part of a pack of seeds and twice a year weeding.


Lynda

I have a friend recommending me to grow green onions in a pot. She has one and said if I do the same and as long as I cut them, I will never need to buy green onions again.

[ThriftoRama]

I like zucchini, but if you plant more than one you'll likely have way more than you can eat, unless you plan to freeze it or make tons of zucchini bread.

We grow on zucchini, about a dozen each of roma and cherry tomatoes, green peppers, heirloom potatoes and basil each year. They all do well. We are in zone 5.

One tip on potatoes. We plant them in a large garbage can. They take up less space and you don't have to dig up the entire garden looking for them!

[GrimJack]

Originally Posted by ThriftoRama

I like zucchini, but if you plant more than one you'll likely have way more than you can eat, unless you plan to freeze it or make tons of zucchini bread.

I have been told the best thing is to eat the zukes when they are still tiny - they are very tender and you can consume more of them.

One tip on potatoes. We plant them in a large garbage can. They take up less space and you don't have to dig up the entire garden looking for them!

A friend of mine plants his potatoes with a lot of space so when the plant gets tall, he puts a tire (yep, car tire) around it and packs straw into it. He makes potato condos 4 or 5 tires tall. The thing is that the potato is a tuber and grows from the base of leaves when there is no light. This sort of stores your food and makes 'digging' for them way easy! - just grab a tire and dig through the straw, you won't have to bend over to dig till late in the year.

[marla]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm taking most of them and hopefully I won't kill everything.

[LuxLiving]

Ummm, I'd be careful on the straw. Some people confuse straw w/hay. If you get hay I'd keep that area separate from any beds I didn't care to weed extensively. We've raised potatoes similarly, EXCEPT, we go to the local wood shop and get plain untreated wood shavings to use. No weeds. Easy to find the tates!