Don’t want to completely fail the first time you start growing vegetable plants?
To help you figure out which plant(s) you want to grow first, and to help you get a little more prepared and feel confident that you can succeed, here are a few plant suggestions and tips from our team members.
Tomato
The first vegetable plant I successfully grew was a tomato at a rental property where I lived. The ‘Fantastic’ tomato variety came highly recommended by a customer so I thought I’d give it a shot. The back yard received sun almost all day so I felt good about my chances of success. There was also a makeshift raised bed filled with the previous tenant’s terrible clay soil. At that point I had the basic knowledge to improve the soil by adding amendments, lime and fertilizer. By July, I was enjoying delicious Fantastic tomatoes, a variety I’ve grown every year since then! The biggest lesson I learned is that successful gardening starts with healthy soil.
~ Colby
As a beginner gardener, my goals were simple. I wanted to watch healthy plants grow and exceed their tags’ expectations, and I wanted to eat delicious fruits and vegetables right out of my garden plot.
I knew I wanted tomatoes, so I decided to get a few plants to see which one I liked and which ones grew the best in my garden plot. I tried a bush tomato (Goliath,) an early small slicer (Stupice,) and a cherry tomato (Sungold.)
I had a few limitations, namely space and sunlight, so as the plants grew I found that for my personal preferences and my specific garden plot, the Sungold was my favorite! I enjoyed growing and eating all 3 varieties and learned a lot about growing/fertilizing/training tomatoes in the process.
Now that I have a lot more space and sunlight, I continue to grow many types of tomatoes, and each year I plant one new variety! My experimenting with different varieties of tomato didn’t really narrow down which single variety I would grow, but sure did expand my palette and my love of growing them!
~ Camille
Cherry Tomato
In the first batch of veggies I grew there was a variety of things I grew with the intention to use in my families meals because there is truly nothing better than fresh homegrown veggies, however, the one with the fondest memories was the cherry tomato.
I wanted to choose one vegetable to grow with the help of my son. He was 5 or 6 at the time and was excited to learn alongside me in the garden.
For anyone new to gardening or looking for something to grow with the intention of teaching or introducing a child to gardening, I highly suggest a tomato.
Advice for beginner gardeners:
- “Feeding”/Fertilizing was the biggest game changer for me when I was first starting out. Learning what your veggies and other garden crops want to be fed will make a huge impact on the overall success of the plants and the harvest you’re able to collect.
- Don’t give up! Sometimes we aren’t successful on our first attempt or we face unknowns and challenges along the way. There’s always a solution.
- Last but not least allow gardening to show you the joy and purpose your outdoor space can share with you.
~ Ashlea
Garlic
The first veggie I managed to grow bountifully was garlic! I grew two kinds: Shandong and Spanish Roja. The Spanish red did MUCH better than the other. I theorize it has something to do with where I placed the garlic in my bed.
The less successful varietal was in a low-spot of the garden bed which likely caused the garlic to rot and become less productive. Overall I got around 40 heads of garlic from only 3/4 bulbs initially. 🙂 By far my favorite crop to watch prosper. After using my raised bed for garlic, soil nutrients were depleted. Thus, the following year, I made sure to apply a cover crop (crimson clover) to fix more nitrogen.
~ Triston
Pumpkin & Lettuce
Pumpkins and lettuce are rewarding as beginner plants because they don’t need much input to grow well.
Growing a pumpkin plant is true entertainment in witnessing the blossoms turn to balls, then morph into their unique shapes. If you let a pumpkin decompose in a spot of the garden, then you’ll most likely be delighted by the volunteer seedlings that emerge the following spring. Here’s my big takeaways to growing a happy pumpkin plant:
- The more sun the better for pumpkins, but it’ll grow well with at least 6 hours of direct sun. The first pumpkin I grew was planted within 15 feet of a big shade tree, and it grow a massive long vine that was reaching for the sun, and one little pumpkin.
- Plant in a good compost mix with some all-purpose fertilizer mixed in, and water the plant deeply every 2-3 days, or every day if it’s 90 degree weather. The pumpkin plant I grew in a raised bed with compost and kept watered grew 11 small pumpkins! So rewarding!
Lettuce is also a nice beginner vegetable because you can cut as many leaves as you’d like for your meal, and it’ll keep pushing out growth. When I grew lettuce from seed, the plants seemed to grow better than the transplants. A good compost mix was the foundation.
In spring, I put a thin layer of seedling mix in a strip overtop the compost and seeded the lettuce seed in that. The raised bed was partially shaded, but received direct sun in the morning until about early afternoon. If it hadn’t rained for a day or two, then I would water the area enough to make that top layer moist, ensuring the small roots wouldn’t totally dry out. I applied liquid fertilizer when the seedlings started to grow their true leaves, and applied granular fertilizer around the base of the plants once they had some nice growth, and they grow beautifully. Some of the fullest, most lush lettuce plants I’ve grown yet.
~ Rachel
Onions
First fondest memory with my first raised bed – Walla Walla onions.
- Raised bed with the best soil from previous renter, I added Harvest Supreme soil to top it off. I used a good tomato vegetable food to give it extra nutrients as onions are very hungry.
- Perfect full sun with easy access to water, I hand watered as needed.
- They turned out so sweet and HUGE, the biggest onions I have ever grown.
- They were planted along the edges of the raised beds so I could have tomatoes and peppers in the middle.
~ Andrea