Gardening is my absolute favorite. I am fortunate enough to have plenty of space to grow a wide variety plants. But if I was just starting out or had a limited amount of space, here is what I would grow and why.
TOMATOES:
Tomatoes are easily my #1 pick because of their versatility. You can get a wide variety of them at your local greenhouse or big box store. And just a couple of plants will give you plenty of produce!
Even as a family who doesn’t like eating fresh tomatoes, we grow a minimum of 20 plants a year. Why? CANNING. We can so many tomatoes for tomatoes sauce, pizza sauce, salsa, etc.
Peppers:
Peppers are my #2 pick because they are very prolific, just like tomatoes. And there are so many kinds of peppers! From bells to Anaheim, banana to poblano. You name it, we grow it!
Peppers are also great for both freezing and canning. I prefer to freeze our bell peppers and poblanos, while I like to can our hot peppers like jalapeño, pepperoncini, banana and anahiem.
Onions:
Onions are my #3 pick because they are easy to grow, don’t need very much space, and we use them in almost everything.
Seriously though, nearly everything we cook has a least a little onion in it! If you get the right variety, they can have a very long storage life. This means that you don’t need to find another way to preserve them if you have an abundance.
Summer Squash:
#4 is summer squash. We like summer squash because its versatility for fresh cooking. Each plant puts on a ton of fruit, so you really don’t need more than a couple, as they do take up quite a bit of space.
This is another one that has a lot of varieties. We have grown black beauty (tradition zucchini), yellow straight neck, yellow patty pan, white patty pan, yellow lemon, and gray zucchini.
The other bonus of summer squash is that it freezes well, and can be added to baked goods! So when that summer abundance takes over your counter (if you know, you know) just shredded it up and freezer for you fall and winter baking days!
There is a downside to summer squash though – SQUASH BUGS. It really is hard to beat the battle with the squash bugs. But honestly, by the time they really start taking over the plants we are usually feeling over eating squash all the time so it kind of works out.
Beans:
Beans is #5 on my list. There are so many different kinds of beans, but the one thing they all have in common is that they don’t take up too much space.
They also grow very quickly, so you don’t have to wait all summer for harvest. Plus they are great for fresh eating and preserving!
And that wraps up my top 5 picks for the vegetable garden. Don’t get me wrong I have plenty of other things I love to grow, but I would definitely choose these as the “necessities”.
What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments!
