13 Easy To Grow Vegetables For A Beginner

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What are the easiest to grow vegetables when you are a beginning gardener? This sort of sounds like a loaded question, but I assure you it is not.

If you are interested in easy crops to grow since you are just beginning to garden, it’s not a problem. You can be a successful gardener even when you are just starting out.

I’ve put a list together of 13 easy-to-grow vegetables that I think are perfect for the beginner gardener. And growing your own vegetables not only tastes great, but it also has additional benefits too.

RELATED: Even if you’ve never gardened before, this Vegetable Gardening for Beginners Ultimate Guide is for you! Learn everything you need to know from over 60 resources, all in one place, to be a successful gardener, including improving soil, cover crops, warm and cool season crops, organic amendments, fertilizing, watering, garden pests and diseases and so much more.

What are the advantages of gardening?

Not only is growing and eating homegrown vegetables healthy, but you also get some other unexpected benefits with vegetable gardening too:

• Reduced Stress
• Decreased Depression
• Physical Exercise
• Save money on the grocery bill
• And, of course – better-tasting food

So with these benefits, I think everyone should start their own garden!

Are there really vegetables that are easy to grow for beginners?

Yes, I assure you there are! Today, we will discuss 13 of the easiest-to-grow vegetables, even if you know nothing about gardening at all.

Many folks are intimidated by the thought of growing a garden. They are misled and think they need a large plot of land to have a vegetable garden. This is not true.

You can live in an urban area with a small space for gardening or in an apartment and still grow your own vegetables.

I recently ran across this article How to Start a Vegetable Container Garden Anywhere from Homestead Acres and thought it was genius! Vegetable gardening in containers! So if your garden space is a deck or a balcony, no problem, you too can grow your own vegetables!

Today, I’ll be referring to raised bed gardening since this is the gardening method I use on our homestead. They are not huge, but I am able to grow enough vegetables to can and preserve much of our family’s food for winter.

And their size is perfect for us!

RELATED: Take the guesswork out! Use the easy formula worksheets in The Canning Garden Workbook (printable) to figure out how much to plant, for canning, to feed your family for a full year!

13 Easiest to grow vegetables Even As a New Gardener

1. Beets

Most people have a love-hate opinion of beets. I really didn’t like them when I was growing up. My mother would cook them often, and I didn’t like the taste at all.

It was like eating a mud pie, if you know what these are. Not good at all.

Once I started gardening, I, of course, wanted to see if I could be successful at growing beets. Once I started growing them, I did change my mind.

I still don’t care for them baked, but to make and eat pickled beets– YUM! And my youngest grandson loves them pickled too.

The great thing about growing beets is that both the root and the leaves are both edible, so I like to call these no-waste vegetables.

2. Cabbage

Cabbage is a cool season crop which means that it can be grown twice a year – in both the spring and again in the fall.

And it doesn’t take up a lot of space to grow it. When you plant cabbage, it needs to be spaced about 2 feet apart. My raised beds are 40 x 45, and I am able to get 4 cabbage plants in each bed.

It grows rather quickly, and it is super exciting to watch it grow. The leaves are gorgeous, and if you go out early in the morning while the dew is still on – it will look like diamonds glistening.

This is one of my favorite vegetables to grow just due to the sheer size it gets. Of course, since it is so large, it does have a garden pest that loves it. The dreaded cabbage moth. But these are easily controlled.

3. Squash

Yes, squash is an easy-to-grow vegetable too. Since it grows on a vine, it is easiest to grow it vertically.

When I grow any vining vegetable in my raised beds, I use a garden trellis and train the vines to grow up the trellis.

The best varieties of squash for trellising are the acorn squash, yellow summer squash, and of course, the zucchini squash.

Other varieties, like the butternut squash and the squash in the gourd family, are really too heavy for a trellis without additional support.

So unless you have a rather large garden layout, I would recommend growing squash that is smaller in size.

4. Radishes

Growing radishes is easy in any size garden too. Actually, they are a fast-growing vegetable, and you will be eating radishes in about 2-4 weeks.

Since they do grow so fast, they are a great vegetable for succession planting. This just simply means staggering your planting times so you can extend your growing season.

5. Peas

Yum, who doesn’t love green peas? Of course, my grandsons “hated” green peas until I started gardening only 4 years ago.

Now when they stay overnight, they ask for green peas and potatoes for supper. Mixing the two together on their plates has become a favorite.

These, too, are great plants for succession planting.

6. Onions

This is one of my favorite vegetables. Onions are one of the most widely used vegetables used in cooking. So it only makes sense to grow them.

And – they are one of the easiest-to-grow vegetables ever! They need only be spaced about 4 inches apart, so you can really grow a lot in a small space.

7. Spinach

Growing spinach is very easy to grow too. In the right conditions, spinach can be harvested in as little as 6 weeks.

Do keep an eye on your plants, as they are easy to bolt. Spinach seeds should be direct sown into the garden soil about 4 inches apart.

Do you know what this means? You can also grow a lot of spinach in a small space too. Just harvest the leaves as they get the desired size you like to eat.

8. Lettuce

Lettuce is a perfect easy-to-grow vegetable and can be harvested rather quickly.

I direct sow lettuce in both spring and fall. It’s most often grown as leaf lettuce, but it can be used for cooking too.

9. Potatoes

These are one of my grandsons’ favorites! I don’t think there is any way I cook them, and they don’t like them.

Of course, I think their favorite is homemade hash browns. It doesn’t matter if I cook them on the stovetop or in the oven; they always ask for seconds.

Growing potatoes does take up a bit of space, but since they are deep-root growers, they make great companions for planting with lettuce, radishes, and spinach since these all grow with shallow roots.

10. Green Beans

This is another one of “those vegetables” my grandsons hated until they tasted homegrown.

There are a couple of different types of green beans – pole and bush beans. I would recommend you start with growing a bush bean.

The reason – bush beans don’t take a lot of space to grow. In contrast, pole beans will continue growing and need to be trellised.

I grow White Half Runners and Blue Lake both in my raised beds. Both of these are bush beans, and I am able to grow enough to have home-canned green beans all winter.

Trust me, once you taste homegrown green beans, you’ll never want them from a grocery store ever again.

11. Carrots

They are a bit slow, but growing carrots is worth it. With just a bit of patience, you and your family will love them!

Carrots should also be direct sown in the garden soil. They don’t transplant well, so I would not recommend starting seeds indoors.

These can be planted among your lettuce, spinach, beans, and onions.

And canning carrots is not hard to do either if you are interested in preserving them for the winter.

Are you beginning to see that easy-to-grow vegetables can also be grown in small spaces or raised beds?

And that you don’t have to have a large vegetable garden layout to grow a bounty of fresh vegetables? I hope so.

12. Cucumbers

These are fun vegetables to grow. They, too, are a vining vegetable that will need to be trellised.

Cucumbers, if you are growing vegetables in a small space or raised beds, can be planted with squash and trellised on the same trellis. Your trellis could need additional support depending on how large your squash vines are.

It’s exciting to go outside to take a look at your cucumber vines and find a nugget of a cucumber hanging there!

It seems like when one appears, it is only a day or so you have lots of cucumbers.

My favorite variety of cucumber to grow is the Boston Pickling Variety. This is because my family loves dill pickles and a variety of other pickles too. This variety of cucumbers is great for pickling.

13. Tomatoes

I saved these for last because I guess growing tomatoes is my all-time favorite vegetable to grow. And I think I’m not the only one that feels this way.

What meal is not complete without tomatoes used in some way? They are so useful in the kitchen.

Whether you use them whole, in sauces for pizza & spaghetti, or even in casseroles, they are just a perfect easy-to-grow vegetable.

I think every beginner gardener should grow tomatoes. No garden is complete without them.

Of course, there are a few tricks to growing healthy tomatoes, and I’ve learned most of them the hard way.

Related: 11 Common Mistakes Made Growing Tomatoes

Most things you read will tell you they should be placed about 2 feet apart, and I have done this in the past.

But this year, since I had an epidemic of tomato hornworms last year, I have spaced them to 2.5 – 3 feet apart. This will allow me to see inside closely and also to keep them pruned if needed.

I grow Roma tomatoes strictly, and this is because they are a meatier tomato that is great for making all my homemade sauces.

Of course, I do have one or two other single plants of a variety for slicing. Normally a slicing variety is my pick.

I always grow determinate tomatoes since they don’t require much space to grow. I would recommend that if you have never grown tomatoes before, you choose determinate as well.

Unless, of course, you have that large garden layout we talked about, or you are just adventurous – which is totally great!

So there you have it—my recommended list of 13 easy-to-grow vegetables for beginning gardeners.

So tell me, what vegetables are you going to be growing in your new vegetable garden this season?

More Gardening Tips

• How to Start A Garden
• Healthy Soil, It’s Necessary
• How and When to Water a Garden
• Best Garden Tools for Gardening
• How to Make Compost Tea

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