3 Easy Vegetables to Grow as a Beginner
No green thumb? No problem! Growing vegetables doesn’t need to be hard. Some veggies are easier to grow than others, making them perfect for inexperienced gardeners. Here are 3 easy vegetables to grow.
1. Lettuce
Most households eat lettuce a few times a week, if not everyday. Imagine salad fresh from the garden! Luckily, lettuce is super easy to grow and maintain.
Lettuce comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Decide which variety to grow based on the time of year (some varieties cannot cope with very hot weather) and the taste and texture you prefer. Try the melt-in-the-mouth leaves of the Butterhead, and the tender and colourful Red Oak.
Lettuces have shallow roots, so are sensitive to water. They require moist, but well-drained soil, and partial sun. You can sow lettuce seeds every two weeks or so to ensure you have lettuce to harvest throughout the growing season.
2. Potatoes
If you’ve never tasted the difference between a homegrown and store-bought potato, you’re in for a real treat! Homegrown potatoes have a firmer texture, and much tastier flesh. Plus, potatoes are easy to grow, even for inexperienced gardeners, and they store well.
You can grow potatoes in a garden bed, or in a container. You’ll need to properly prepare the soil, and do a little research on companion planting before you get started. Proper cultivation is essential when growing potatoes to prevent them going green – green potatoes are poisonous. Potatoes are very sensitive to the sun, so work well as a winter crop in warm climates.
There are many varieties of potatoes you can grow, including sweet potatoes. Try out a range of colourful varieties, which are packed with nutrients.
3. Bush beans
Beans come in two main varieties, bush beans and pole beans. Pole beans require a trellis, so they aren’t a low-maintenance plant. Bush beans, however, are very easy to grow.
Bush beans do not require the same level of soil fertility that other plants need. In fact, overly rich soil can leave plants vulnerable to pests and diseases. So, if you don’t have your own compost heap, no worries.
Bush beans do require well-drained soil and plenty of sunlight. They are best grown during warm summer months, and you can sow seeds every few weeks to ensure a continuous supply of delicious beans.
Provider, Blue Lake and Tendercrop are good varieties of green bush beans that are widely available.
Annette Welsford has a partial degree in Horticulture and a Post Graduate Certificate in marketing. Having lived in the cold, temperate and hot parts of Australia and the UK, she has gained experience over the years with gardening in a variety of climates. Annette also worked for a fertilizer company where she was responsible for developing, editing and publishing a range of technical manuals on nutrition and fungal diseases for a wide range of horticultural crops including tomatoes. Annette is Managing Director of Commonsense Marketing Pty Ltd, a publishing and marketing company, responsible for the editing, design and worldwide marketing of the How to Grow books, and other products. Commonsense Marketing also provides expert offline and online marketing consulting and design services to a variety of small to medium sized businesses.
Tags: bush beans, easy to grow vegetables, green beans, lettuce, Potatoes, vegetables grow
