Starting a garden can feel like a huge undertaking! Although there is plenty of information online, sometimes it can be overwhelming to sort through. It doesn’t help that each plant you read up on comes with its own particular needs and wants!
Looking back, I wish someone would’ve given me a cheat sheet and told me which plants were the easiest to start with. If you dive in with just a few easy plants, you’ll be able to gain a lot of hands on experience as you go.
So, here’s my top 5 list of plants for new gardeners to grow. This list is based on a few things including ease of growing, consistency, production, and how satisfying the harvests are. I also took into consideration plants that just bring more fun to the gardening experience!
1. Cherry Tomato
The cherry tomato plant is easy and low-maintenance. While larger varieties of tomatoes can be very finicky about fertilization and watering, this plant thankfully isn’t. I’ve even had a cherry tomato plant go almost ignored in my garden for quite a few days (oops!) only to have it keep on thriving and bear lots of fruit!
Production is the next reason I love this plant – the cherry tomatoes just seem to keep on coming! I’ve never had anywhere near the amount of production on any plant I’ve grown as I’ve had with my cherry tomato plants.
I also appreciate the fact that the fruit is versatile and can go from a snack, to a salad, to being roasted or stewed. And if you pick them in the heat of the day they are super sweet and taste delicious right off the vine almost like candy! Lastly, they just look darn pretty growing in the garden. All those little clusters of tomatoes everywhere can really bring a smile to any gardeners face!
Try these varietes: Super 100 or Sungold
2. Pickling Cucumber
The cucumber plant is fairly simple to please! Just give it some sun and light but consistent watering and it’ll reward you with lots of cucumbers. This is easier to me than some other plants that really need a deep soaking of water every couple of days.
Cucumbers are similar to me to cherry tomatoes in that they can bring almost instant gratification. One minute you’re standing in your garden picking them and the next you’re inside nibbling on them!
What I appreciate about the picking cucumber varieties is that they offer multiple ways to eat and prepare them. Of course there’s always plenty of salads to be made, but pickling cucumbers retain their crispness better. This makes them ideal for pickle making! And, if you’ve never made your own pickles let me tell you it is so rewarding. I love the satisfaction when something from your garden can result in a better tasting version than store-bought!
Try these varietes: Boston Pickling or Bush Pickle
3. Beans
When growing Bush or Pole Beans, it truly amazes me how just a couple of plants can provide such an abundance of food. They are also super easy to maintain and really don’t need much maintenance other than consistent watering. The only thing you’d have to provide a Pole Bean plant is some support for it to climb up. And it’s super rewarding to watch it climb so it’s worth the effort!
The other rewarding part of a bean plant is that it’s one of the easiest plants to grow right from seed. In fact it was one of the first plants I grew from seed and not from a pre-bought start. I’ll never forget how excited I was to see the little sprout shoot up a few days later!
Green beans are also another plant that taste so much better from the garden than from the store. As long as you pick them young, they’ll be so tender you can eat them right off the vine. I really love versatile plants and this is another one that you can do so much with. Green beans go well in so many dishes and work well as a side dish or fresh in salads. They’re also delicious pickled!
Try these varieties: Blue Lake or Blue Lake 247
4. Radishes
Radishes are super easy, you just have to give them a bit of space to develop and keep them watered. Not only are they one of the easiest plants to grow, but also one of the fastest! From seed to harvest in under 30 days a lot of times.
The thing about growing something that you can’t see is it brings more excitement. When you finally get to dig it up, it’s like a little surprise! And, it’s fun to have a different experience than all the other plants where you pick fruit off a stem.
And although they’re mostly known as those little red discs in your salad, they can actually be very versatile. Try them roasted with olive oil, sauteed with butter, or pickled and put on top of your favorite taco. The possibilities are endless! And, just like everything else on this list they taste so much better fresh from your garden than from the store.
Try these varieties: Cherry Belle or French Breakfast
5. Lettuce
Lettuce is something you can easily grow right from seed. And some varieties can mature pretty quickly so you won’t have to wait too long to see results! Since they don’t have a deep root system, their main need is just for the soil to be kept moist.
What I enjoy most about lettuce is that you can alter the outcome by how you plant the seeds. Either you plant a lot of seeds closely packed together in a row and create densely packed baby lettuce. Or you can plant only a couple of seeds every few inches and let your lettuce grow large to full maturity. I like to do a little bit of both so I have baby lettuces to pick from while the larger head lettuce is developing.
It’s crazy to think that grocery stores charge premium prices for baby lettuce mixes when you can just grow it in your backyard. That’s another part of the fun of lettuce, imagine how impressive it will be to dinner guests when you serve them up a mixed green salad with fresh lettuce from your garden!
