Easiest Vegetables To Grow That You Can Try At Home

It’s perfect to sprinkle some chopped basil into a pizza and Caprese salads or make sweet basil syrup for sliced summer strawberries. Adding some leaves of basil into spicy Thai soups is also wonderful.

Basil is very easy to grow and doesn’t take much space. On the other hand, a well-pruned plant can give you ½ cup of basil every week. Magical Michael, Sweet, and Genovese basils are good varieties to try.

Start by finding a sunny spot around your house or in your garden, such as windowsills. Now, prepare a container or pot and fill it with well-drained soil.

Water them at their bases whenever the soil is dry to the touch.

You’ll know it is time to harvest when their leaves reach a desirable size. Pluck them from the plant and use it.

Summer Squash

Summer squash is a popular side dish in most people’s meals, known for Roasted Parmesan Summer Squash. It is also used as noodles in place of zucchini in Stir-Fried Zucchini Noodles.

Similar to basil, summer squash is a plant that loves full sun and hates frost. It also dislikes wind, especially during the fruiting stage.

Before planting summer squash, find a plot with extra protection. Remember that squash is a high-yielding plant and only a few is enough to feed an entire family so don’t ambitiously grow too much.

Sure Thing, Gold Rush, and Green Bush varieties are worth a try.

You can combine growing it with other plants, such as lemon balm, pumpkin, melon, cucumber, or marigold.

The best time to grow them is during spring and you can grow them in hills or rows (with 1' 11" x 1' 11" row gap). Sow seeds 1-inch-deep into the soil. The soil should be well-drained and enriched with compost. Frequent and consistent watering is required for good fruit development.

Don’t shallowly water as the soil needs to be moist 4” down.

Harvest them when they’re tender and young because once the rinds start hardening, it’s hard to cut and use. Cut the fruits from the plants using a sharp knife.

Normally, after harvesting, there are huge quantities of squash that you probably can’t eat all at once. Here are some creative ways to use up:

Freeze for fall and winter use
Pickle for canning
Dry them

Bell Peppers

There are many ways to cook bell peppers.

Such as stuffing them up with fillings and bake, topping them on homemade pasta and pizzas, cutting them into chunks to make veggie kebabs, or tossing them into salads. Aside from diverse applications, this beautiful product is very easy to grow, either indoors or outdoors.

If you have time, start planting them from seeds indoor for 2 months waiting for the last expected frost.

Once they sprout and thrive their first true leaves, move them into a pot or container and place them in a sunny area. Enhance their growth by feeding a slow-release granular fertilizer and watering 2 or 3 times/week.

Avoid damaging roots or excessive nitrogen while maintaining proper soil pH (6.5), good drainage, and nutrient levels

The whole process generally takes 70-90 days to mature and start producing fruits. Hot peppers are up to 150 days.

The longer the fruits stay on their plant, the greater the vitamin C content and the sweeter they become. Each plant usually produces around 6-8 peppers. Once their fruits reach the desired size and color, harvest them by using sharp scissors or a knife.

Radishes

Radishes is another shining contender to try. It’s as crunchy as carrots but more astringent to the taste. As containing a rich content of potassium, it is a little bit bitter if eating raw so the most delicious way to enjoy them is well-cooked.

There are many easy yet tasty recipes to try with radishes. For example, grilling, toasting, braising, fermented, or pickled.

It is a favorite ingredient for people who want to make low-carb meals to lose weight safely and healthily.

To grow radishes, start in the winter when the weather is still cold. Prepare well-drained, nutrient soil, and radish seeds. Begin with sowing seeds directly ½” to 1” deep into the soil. If growing in rows, remember to keep them 12” apart.

If you want a continuous harvest, plant several rows of radishes every 10 days so you’ll have a constant source of food during late spring and summer.

When the seedlings start to sprout, thin them out so that there’s one plant spaced every 2” from each other. During this time, make sure the soil is always moist and soft by watering every other day.

It usually takes 22 to 40 days for radishes to mature. Then, 3-4 weeks to be ready for harvesting. You can gently loosen the surrounding soil or pulling them.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a great addition to add to your summer meals’ delectation. It comes in a wide range of varieties with different sizes, colors, and tastes, including tiny grape tomato, deep red cherry tomato, or bright, multi-colored heirloom tomato.

Aside from being a topping for grilled burgers, they’re perfect for sandwiches, side dishes, pizzas, pasta, pies, and even juices or cocktails.

To grow tomatoes, make sure you have a sunny spot around the house or in your yard because this plant loves warm weather. You can use a tomato slice to grow a new plant or start growing them from seeds indoors for 6-8 weeks before the last frost date.

Once the seedlings start to sprout, fill a container or pot with loose, well-drained soil almost to the top of it, and add one tomato plant per container/pot.

Place it in the sunniest position in your house or garden with 6-8 hours of full sun/day while watering it well to make sure soil is always moist. Daily watering the plant in the morning during its early growing season.

If the temperature goes up, water it twice/day.

Tomatoes need around 20-30 days to mature then begin during the next 20 days, it’ll start producing fruits.

The best time to harvest them is when the fruit is a mature green to avoid bruising and splitting. These fruits will then be allowed to ripen off the vine.

Spinach

Spinach is a vegetable that’s rich in manganese, iron, magnesium, vitamin K, C, and A, which helps reduce blood pressure and oxidative stress while benefitting eye health.

There are various ways to enjoy this vegetable, such as making salads, soups, sauces, and dips. The best way to eat them is filling spinaches with pesto cravings, rolled up in pasta, or stir-fried with garlic.

If you don’t like eating them directly, frozen spinaches make delicious smoothies.

Out of many varieties, Semi-Savoy Spinach is the easiest to grow. Prepare well-drained soil rich in organic matter like composted manure or compost with a pH level of 6.5 to 7. Spinaches can be grown in containers or directly on the ground.

For spinach lovers who plan to harvest them twice a year, star seedlings about 6-8 weeks before the last frost in the fall and 4-6 weeks before the last frost in the spring.

Sow seeds 2”-4” apart and space between rows is 12”-14”.

The seed germination starts after 5-9 days at 70 degrees F. The colder the soil, the longer the seed germination.

Most varieties of spinach are ready to harvest after 37-45 days.

When harvesting, cut the outer leaves using scissors or pinch off with a fingernail back to within two inches of the ground to allow them to regrow, usually after 4 weeks. With baby spinach leaves, once they’re 2” tall from the ground, it’s time to harvest.

Cucumbers

Aside from summer squashes, cucumbers are a highly productive vegetable during summer months.

They are preferred by the crunchy texture and a mild melon aroma and flavor, commonly found in different salads, smoothies, and recipes. Cucumbers are perfect to stir fry, make gazpacho, frozen treats, or pickle.

The best thing is sliced cucumbers work greatly as a natural face mask.

Here are some easy-to-grow cucumber varieties: Picklebush, Bush Champion, and Sald Bush. The best time to grow them outdoors is in February or March through July in very warm climates or between April and June in mild climates with long growing seasons.

To grow them, sowing seeds 1” deep and 2-3 feet apart in a row because this is a vine vegetable. You should prepare a trellis or mounds for them.

Cucumber grows best in well-drained soil rich in organic matter and under sunny, warm weather. The ideal temp is 65 degrees F. Make sure to retain the soil pH levels within 6 to 7.

It’ll take around 50-70 days for cucumbers to harvest. Under proper care and disease prevention, each plant can give you 5 pounds of fruit. Their long, slender fruits usually range in length from 3” – 24” depending on the variety.

Lettuce

Lettuce comes in different textures and flavors to suit every taste, whether red or peppery, soft or buttery, mild or crisp. It is also considered one of the world's most popular vegetables as well.

With this vegetable, you can cook many different dishes, such as making lettuce wraps, sauce, soup, saute or stir-fried, salads, juice, and smoothies. The five varieties of spinach below are very worthy trying to grow at home:

Looseleaf
Cos or Romaine
Bibb, Boston or Butterhead
Batavian, French Crisp or Summer Crisp
Iceberg or Crisphead

Lettuce can be grown in a very small area and thrive healthily in either slight shady and sunny weather conditions.

You can tuck them unassumingly among flowers, in containers, or a window box. They will give you crop all autumn and spring.

Sowing nearly 10 seeds per foot of soil and make sure 12”-18” apart between rows. Butterhead and Romaine lettuce seedlings to 6”-8” apart while thin leaf lettuce is 4”. Watering them every 4-5 days - once or twice a week – make sure the top six inches of soil is adequately moist.

Lettuce grows fast and quick to harvest. It averagely takes 30-45 days to reach the desired size for harvesting.

Green Beans

Not just being a deliciously crunchy, low-calorie food but green beans also provide numerous vital nutrients, such as silicon, vitamin K, folate, dietary fiber, and vitamin C.

The best way to enjoy them is by stirring into main courses like stew, soup, or curry. You can also fry or steam them as a side dish. Making it a meal by serving green beans over your favorite grilled chicken or cooked grain, adding an egg.

Some people love turning fresh green beans into saucy summer comfort food by combining them with aromatics, white wine, and ripe tomatoes.

There are two main types of green beans to grow – the pole beans which require a trellis to grow on and the bush beans which can be planted in wide rows with a 4” to 6” spacing between plants.

Sow seeds 1” deep and 3” apart into the soil. When they spout, thin them to at least 4” apart for pole bean and 18” apart for bush varieties. Remember to feed them with nitrogen fertilizer and keep 1” to 1.5” of water per week.

Pole beans mature in 50-60 days while the bush beans are in 50-55 days

Conclusion

Above are the 9 easiest vegetables to grow that you can try at home. They are all popular, delicious to taste, and various in recipes. I hope after reading this post, you’ll get some more options to vary your garden.

Eugene Williams