Three easy summer vegetables for a first veggie patch

November 18, 2024

Three easy summer vegetables for a first veggie patch

The hardest part of starting a veggie patch is not the growing, it is deciding what to put in it, because every list online has forty things on it and half of them will not do anything here. So here is a much shorter list. Three vegetables, all of them forgiving, all of them heavy croppers, and between them they teach you most of what you need to know for everything you plant afterwards.

Tomatoes

Everybody starts with tomatoes and they are right to. A tomato off your own plant is a completely different thing to one out of a shop, and the plant asks for very little beyond sun and steady water.

Pick a forgiving variety. Grosse Lisse is the standard garden tomato around here for a reason, and a cherry variety like Red Cherry crops heavily and shrugs off the things that upset the big ones.
Give them the sunniest spot you have. They want as much of it as you can find, though in the worst of the summer heat a bit of afternoon shade stops the fruit scalding.
Stake them or cage them early. They grow taller and faster than you expect, and a plant that has flopped over is a plant with fruit lying on the dirt going soft.
Water at the base and keep it consistent. Uneven watering is what splits the skins and causes blossom end rot.

Zucchini

If tomatoes are the rewarding one, zucchini is the reassuring one, because it is very hard to kill and it produces far more than one household needs. A single plant will keep you going and leave you with enough to start leaving them on other people's doorsteps.

Give it room. Zucchini sprawls, so what looks like a generous gap in November is not one in January.
Six hours of sun minimum, and more is better.
A deep drink every few days beats a light water every day, same as everything else in the patch.
Pick them small. A zucchini left on the plant turns into a marrow, and the plant slows down making new ones once it thinks it has finished the job.

Capsicum

Capsicum is the one that surprises people, because it looks like a fussy plant and it is not. It wants warmth, which we have plenty of, and it will not cope with cold, which is the only real trap.

Five or six hours of sun in a warm spot, and do not put them out while the nights are still cold.
Water at the base rather than over the leaves, and keep the soil damp rather than wet.
Feed them lightly every few weeks. Capsicum sets fruit over a long stretch, so it wants topping up rather than one big feed at the start.
Leave them on the plant to colour up if you want red or yellow ones. Green capsicum is just an unripe one.

The bit that matters more than the plant choice

All three of these want the same two things and they matter more than the variety on the packet. Soil with organic matter through it, so it holds water and drains at the same time, and mulch over the top so what you water stays where you put it. Get those two right and a beginner's patch outgrows an experienced gardener's patch in poor soil, every time.

Shop related products

D.T Brown Tomato Grosse Lisse Seed. The standard garden tomato, globe shaped and heavy cropping.
D.T Brown Tomato Red Cherry Seed. Small sweet fruit and a very forgiving plant to learn on.
D.T Brown Zucchini Lebanese Seed. Heavy cropping zucchini, and one plant is usually plenty.
D.T Brown Capsicum California Wonder Bell Seed. Mid season capsicum that colours up well if you leave it on.
Brunnings Garden Compost with Seaweed 25L. Organic matter through the bed before anything goes in.
Martins Organic Sugar Cane Bale 11KG. Mulch over the top, which halves the watering.

There is a full rack of D.T Brown seed at the shop and more in the garden range online. If you are not sure whether your soil is up to it, come into the garden centre and describe it to me, because that is a much better conversation in person than it is online.

Item added to your cart

Three easy summer vegetables for a first veggie patch