5 beginner vegetables that are hard to get wrong
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5 vegetables worth starting with
Nobody starts out knowing this stuff, and the fastest way to get put off gardening for a decade is to pick something difficult for your first go and then watch it die. So the trick with a first veggie patch is not skill, it is choosing crops that forgive you, and there are a handful that will put up with a forgotten watering, ordinary soil and a bit of guesswork about where to put them. Get a win on the board with these and everything harder is easier to face afterwards.
1. Lettuce
Lettuce is the one I would put in front of anybody who has never grown a thing. Scatter the seed thinly, keep the soil damp while it germinates, and you will have leaves in about 6 weeks. Pick a loose-leaf variety rather than a heading one and you can take the outer leaves a few at a time while the plant keeps going, which means one sowing feeds you for weeks instead of one afternoon.
It will bolt and go bitter once it gets properly hot, so give it some afternoon shade through summer and sow a small patch every few weeks rather than the whole packet at once.
2. Radish
Radish is the fastest reward in the garden and that matters more than people think when you are starting out. Sow the seed straight into the bed about 1cm deep, thin the seedlings so they are a few centimetres apart, and you are pulling them in 4 to 6 weeks. They will grow in fairly ordinary soil and they do not want feeding, and the one thing they will not tolerate is drying out, because that is what makes them woody and hot.
3. Tomato
Tomatoes take a bit more from you and they give back more than anything else in the patch. Buy a seedling for your first year rather than starting from seed, put it in the sunniest spot you have, and stake it the day you plant it. Water deeply at the base a couple of times a week rather than daily, because uneven watering is what splits the fruit and causes the black patch on the bottom.
Cherry types are more forgiving than the big ones. If you want a guaranteed first year, that is where I would go.
4. Zucchini
Zucchini will produce more than you can eat and it will do it whether or not you are paying attention. Give each plant about a square metre, because they sprawl further than the seed packet suggests, and keep the water up once they start fruiting. Pick them at about 15cm long and keep picking, because one marrow left on the plant tells it to shut production down.
Powdery mildew on the leaves late in the season is normal and it is not the end of the plant. Water the soil rather than the foliage and it comes on later.
5. Spring onion
Spring onions grow in a pot on a step, they take almost no room, and you snip what you need and leave the rest in the ground. They are slow compared to radish and they are about as close to unkillable as a vegetable gets, so they are a good thing to have going in the background while you learn the rest.
The bit that actually decides it
None of these crops care very much about your soil, and all of them care about water. A bed that dries right out and then gets flooded will give you bitter radish, bolted lettuce and split tomatoes no matter which varieties you picked, so the single best thing a beginner can do is put mulch on and water deeply a couple of times a week. That one habit fixes more problems than any product will.
Shop related products
- D.T. Brown Red and Green Salad Lettuce Seed. A loose-leaf mix you can pick a few leaves at a time.
- D.T. Brown Radish Cherry Belle Seed. Sown straight into the bed and pulled in about a month.
- D.T. Brown Tomato Red Cherry Seed. The forgiving tomato for a first year.
- D.T. Brown Zucchini Lebanese Seed. One plant is usually plenty.
- Brunnings Seed Raising Mix 5L. For anything you want to start in a punnet first.
Did you know we keep more of the D.T. Brown seed rack in the shop than we list online, including climbing bean Purple King, pea Greenfeast, pea Sugarsnap and snow pea. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the rack.
The rest of the range is in our garden centre, and the full seed listing is under D.T. Brown seeds.
Keep reading
- 7 mistakes to avoid in a new vegetable garden
- How much sun does a vegetable garden actually need?
- The tools a new gardener actually needs
I still sow the whole packet of lettuce in one go and then act surprised when it all bolts at once.
Candeece
Strathalbyn H Hardware
