Back yard gardening is the epitome of frugal living. For the cost of seed, some bedding plants and water, you can have a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables for a fraction of what you would pay at the supermarket. And as food costs continue to rise, the savings are even greater. Then there is the food safety concerns. Think about that bell pepper you bought last week at the store. Was it grown from natural seeds or genetically altered ones? What pesticides were used to grow it? How many people handled it before you bought it? Grown in your own back yard garden, none of these issues are of any concern. Finally, we all know that fresh vegetables have a wonderful taste that just can not be duplicated by store bought produce. I could go on and on about the benefits of growing your own food.
If you are new to backyard gardening, you may be concerned if you can successfully grow your own fruits and vegetables. Especially if you are one of those people that tends to have a brown thumb with plants. No worries. There are a host of vegetables and fruits that are so easy to grow that even the novice can do it. So, what are the easiest vegetables to grow?
The absolutely easiest vegetable to grow is a radish. If a sloth were able to garden, even he could grow a radish. Simply plat the seed, give it water and you are guaranteed to have a crop of these little red jewels. They will be the first to sprout up and can be harvested as quickly as 4 to 5 weeks. Once harvested, replant a new crop and you will have them all summer.
Another extremely easy vegetable to grow are tomatoes. I suggest buying them as bedding plants. They are easier to grow this way and will yield fruit faster. They also come in a number of varieties such as cherry tomatoes, Roma’s, Big Burpy and so on. One note on growing tomatoes. If you are going to grow different varieties, plant each type of tomato apart from the others. They have a tendency to cross-pollinate. It would be a shame to plant some nice big tomatoes, just to have them cross-pollinate with your cherry tomatoes and end up with a bumper crop of little tomatoes and no big ones.
Onions are another easy crop to grow. They are hardy and will grow easily with little effort. I again recommend you buy them as starters rather than seed. Though they grow well from seed, they will mature faster if they are planted as starters allowing you to harvest quicker.
Another bedding plant that grows easily, mature quickly and yields tons of fruit are peppers. Just about any variety can be bought as a bedding plant. There are sweet peppers like green, red and yellow bell peppers. Then there are the hot peppers like jalapenos, Serrano’s, chili’s and for the true masochist, habaneras peppers.
Cucumbers are simple to grow too. These vine plants grow close to the ground and produce a fruit that can’t be beat. Planted in a mound, the broad leafs of the sprout will come up in just a few days. Make sure you plant these some distance from the rest of your garden as the vines will take up a lot of space.
Lettuce can be grown pretty easily as well, particularly in cooler climates. I recommend growing leafy lettuce varieties and steering clear of head lettuce like iceberg. The main reason is that in vegetables that have a tight head, insects will have a place to hide between the leaves, making them hard to control. This philosophy also goes for other head vegetables like brussel sprouts and cabbage.
I have one final note on growing vegetables from seed. When you purchase seeds you will notice that some will have a label denoting that they are heirloom seeds. In an attempt to get you to come back and buy more seeds every year, seed companies have genetically altered the packaged seeds so that the seeds that come from the mature fruit are unpalatable and will not germinate. Heirloom seeds have not been genetically altered in this way. Seeds from matured fruit of heirloom seeds can be dried and then planted next year, saving you the cost of buying more seeds. So if you are concerned about genetically altered seeds or you just want to save money in the long run, I recommend buy the heirloom varieties.
Growing veggies in the backyard is extremely satisfying. There is nothing like watching them grow from seeds to full sized plants. So, pull out the tiller, go buy some seeds and let the fun begin.
