Top 6 Vegetables for Beginners

My Top 6 Vegetables for Beginners

I've been thinking back to my first real year of vegetable gardening, and how intimidating it really was.  I literally didn't even know how many carrots I would get out of one seed (it's one, which, by that logic, would mean that one bean seed makes one bean, right?)  There's so much to learn in the beginning, and with the incredible variety of vegetables and seeds out there, it's hard to know where to start.  

Trying to understand the specific needs and outcomes of every plant variety is seriously overwhelming - especially if you've never had a veggie garden before.  As such, I've become a pretty big advocate of the "put a seed in the ground and see what happens" method for beginner gardening.  While you may not end up with a bountiful, glorious, Pinterest-worthy harvest using this method, you'll probably discover that plants actually want to grow; they're more resilient than you might think.

That said, some plant varieties are better adapted to our climate and soil conditions in Southern Ontario than others, and it never hurts to start your gardening adventures with vegetables that are more likely to hand you a win.  

I've narrowed down a list of the six vegetables I'd recommend to beginner gardeners in Ontario.  These six plants have provided me with ego-satisfying successes almost every year because they're relatively easy to grow and provide loads of reward for your effort.  For each vegetable, I've provided a quick description of how they're grown and why they're a staple in my garden every year.

#6. Cherry Tomatoes

Instructions: Plant indoors in potting mix in early to mid April, then plant outside in a soil/compost mix after the May long weekend, leaving lots of room to grow.  Stick a tomato cage around it, water it at the base regularly, and wait for the juicy little snacks to grow starting in late August.

• 1 seed = 1 plant
• 1 plant = tens or even hundreds of cherry tomatoes!
• Suggested for a family of four: 1-2 plants

Why Cherry Tomatoes?  Ok, so these are not the easiest on this list to grow, but they are SO rewarding.  If you have never tasted a tomato straight off the vine, then you have never truly experienced a tomato.  They are so much sweeter and remarkably more flavourful than their commercially-grown counterparts.  In addition, I'm really big on the notion of growing a "snacking garden" - especially with little kids - where you can easily pop the fruits or vegetables into your mouth straight off the plant without any special harvest or prep work.  In this way, cherry tomatoes are superior to large beefsteak-type tomatoes IMO.  So, while they are a little more needy in terms of  soil nutrient demand throughout the growing season, and are susceptible to more diseases and problems than some of the other veggies on this list, the payoff is WORTH. IT.

#5. Sugar Snap Peas

Instructions: Plant seeds directly in the ground in early spring - peas love the cold!  Give them something to climb (a fence or a trellis works) or let them spill over the edge of a raised bed.  Harvest liberally for most of July - the more you pick, the more they produce!

• 1 seed = 1 plant 
• 1 plant = tens of peas.  
• Suggested for a family of four: 3-4 plants.

Why Peas?  These are another great "snacking garden" choice.  They're pretty much maintenance-free, they have lovely white blossoms, can be grown vertically (added privacy anyone?) and the peas are fun to find and pick.  Plus, they're sweet, crunchy, and again, don't require any prep before to eating.  Throw some in a sunny spot along your fence and see what happens!

#4. Cucumber

Instructions: Plant indoors few weeks ahead of the may long weekend (not before this, or you'll end up having to put them in a larger container before planting outdoors - an unnecessary step as far as I'm concerned), or directly in the ground just after.  Hill up the soil where you are growing (for better drainage) and provide either a trellis or a bunch of space for these vining, sprawling vegetables to grow.  If you trellis them up, tie the vines to support them with a piece of old nylon pantyhose.

• 1 seed = 1 cucumber plant 
• 1 cucumber plant = 4-6 (ish) cucumbers 
• Suggested for a family of four: 1-2 plants

Why Cucumber?   As far as the effort:reward ratio goes, cucumbers are a massive win.  When these vines start to produce, you will be inundated with cucumbers.  We grew three plants last year and ended up donating half our harvest to the food bank, even though they're one of my kids' favourites!  Sliced cucumbers make a great addition to the mid-summer, outdoor hamburger dinner spread, and can even be made into a cool, creamy, dilly salad.  Again, not much prep required here; unlike a zucchini, cucumbers are generally eaten raw, so just wash, slice, and eat!

#3. Kale

Instructions:  Plant direct just before last frost or indoors a few weeks before that.  Beyond that, this leafy green could survive nuclear war.  Plant it and forget it.

• 1 seed = 1 kale plant 
• 1 kale plant =  6 (ish) "bunches" like you would buy in the grocery store in 2 (ish) week intervals all summer 
• Suggested for a family of four: 1-2 plants

Why Kale?  My husband asks this question in earnest every summer.  Kale is not for everyone, and he is firmly in the "kale is the worst excuse for food of all time" camp.  However, it's nutritionally dense, makes a great addition to smoothies, tastes great in a salad (as long as you provide the requisite 10-minute olive oil massage) and it is ridiculously easy to grow.  Kale produces leaves continuously throughout the growing season and even a little past first frost.  If you're looking to rack up a vegetable gardening win, this is your best bet.

#2. Garlic

Instructions: Stick a clove deep in the soil in the fall or early spring, do literally nothing for 10 months, then, using a garden fork, dig up a full bulb in early August.

• 1 clove = 1 bulb (plant)
• Suggested for a family of four: 12-18 plants

Why Garlic?  Because who doesn't use garlic?  Preserving garlic bulbs is as easy as letting them dry out (cure) for a few days, cutting off the plant portion, and sticking them in your cupboard to be used all winter long.  In my experience, planting 12-18 cloves in the fall provides me with enough garlic to last my family until the next harvest, and any leftover bulbs get broken apart planted in the fall.  Garlic also serves as a great companion plant for leafy greens.  This year, I've sprinkled field greens (spring mix salad) around the base of my garlic plants, which will do double duty as a consumable, weed-preventing ground cover.


Bonus: Garlic pushes up flowers called "scapes" in June.  The closed buds and their curly stems can be cut off and used as a garlic substitute, fried up and eaten as a side dish, turned into a delicious pesto, and even pickled.  In addition, cutting off the scapes forces the plant to put its energy into growing big, juicy bulbs.

#1. Bush Beans

Instructions: Plant directly in soil.  Do basically nothing else.  Eat more beans than your bowels can handle for at least a month.

• 1 seed = 1 bean plant 
• 1 bean plant = 20-40 (ish?) beans 
• Suggested for a family of four: 6-8 plants

Why Bush Beans?   There's a reason why beans are #1 on my list.  Bush beans have it all: they germinate quickly, they're easy to grow and fun to harvest, they come in a variety of fun colours, they provide like crazy for months, you can eat them raw or cooked and, like peas and other legumes, they actually ADD nutrients to your soil rather than just sucking them up.  For this reason, you should either include beans every year in ALL of your garden beds, or you should rotate them to be included in your beds at least once every 2-3 years.  If I had to only one thing to grow each year (heaven forbid) it would unquestionably be beans.


Bonus: For a stunning addition to your border gardens, fences, or trellises, try Scarlet Runner Beans.  The beans themselves are not quite as tasty as bush beans but they're still quite good if harvested when they're small.  The real reward, though, with this kind of bean is the cardinal-red flowers they produce all through the summer.  Absolutely gorgeous.  We have them on trellises connected to our chain-link fence to give us a little added privacy in the summer months.

Runners Up

Zucchini: Edible flowers, zucchinis every few days, plus this is one of the best vegetables for "hiding" in other foods when you have a picky eater on your hands. The downside: they take up a massive amount of space, and powdery mildew has taken out my squash plants every single year.  It's really hard to avoid in our humid climate.

Spinach: Easy to grow, freezes nicely for cooking or for use in smoothies, cool-season friendly, shade friendly, and it's choc full of nutrients.  The downside: like its relatives swiss chard and beets, spinach is susceptible to leaf miners, which are a) gross (they're little worms that wind their way through the interior of your leafy plants), and b) really freaking hard to get rid of since they're INSIDE the plant.

Radishes: These lovely, spicy roots are a spring treasure due to their short DTM (days to maturity) time of only about 30 days.  The downside: their sunlight and specific nutrient needs (not too much nitrogen) make them a little finicky.  About half the years I've been growing I've wound up with great bushy tops and spindly roots - not exactly ideal.

Swiss Chard: Rainbow swiss chard is actually super easy to grow and super pretty as it comes in a variety of lovely colours, as its name suggests.  The downside: seriously, how much swiss chard do you actually eat?

Carrots: Carrots were actually on my list at first.  They're super fun to harvest; it's neat to discover what's been growing beneath the soil.  Same goes for beets and parsnips.  The downside: root vegetables, especially carrots and parsnips because of their deep growth, require a deeply worked and amended (compost added) soil.  Let's be honest; this is a pain in the butt.  Between that and the constant thinning, root vegetables are pretty labour intensive.  If I had to choose one to grow, it would be beets, simply because if it all goes to pot, at least you can eat the tops!

I'd love to know what you're growing this year!  Do you agree with my top six?  What would you add or take away from the list?  Hit me with your comments and questions below!

Sow It 'Til You Grow It

Hello. I'm Sara.

I'm a 36 year old high school Geography teacher living in Orangeville, Ontario (Zone 5A) with a passion for growing things; young minds, obviously, but when I'm not doing that, it's plants.

To begin, begin.

In 2011 I bought my first home.  In 2012, I bought three tomato plants (no idea what kind), and tenderly stuffed them in a crowded, shaded corner of my backyard flower bed.  I was so excited to try and grow something - especially something I could eat.

Here's a list of things I knew about gardening at that time:

1. Nothing

Miraculously, six small, ripe tomatoes manifested that summer.  To me, that was a massive win, since I assumed that must be how many tomatoes a plant ought to produce.  I didn't know any different (see above list of things I knew about gardening).

But that was enough to get me started; I was hooked.  I tucked that win under my belt, waited out the winter, and tried again.  By then we had a different house with a sunnier yard and more options for where to house our plants.

I bought a gardening book and read it cover to cover.

I bought a small raised bed and put it in the sunniest part of the yard.  I grabbed a few large pots.

I planted chard, kale, tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, and radishes, among other things.

My radishes were spectacular!  By June that year it was obvious...I was a gardening wizard.

And then my zucchini got powdery mildew.

And then my chard got leaf miners.

And then my lettuce got aphids.

Gardening wizard I was not.  The only thing I got out of my effort was a handful of radishes a great big humble pie.

But that's the thing about gardening - especially in Canada - everything is on a cycle; grow, learn, try again, grow, learn try again.

I've come to realize over the years that gardening is an exercise in problem solving that requires nothing but a bit of natural curiosity.  It's not about growing the most tomatoes or the longest carrots.  The joy I get from gardening comes from being a participant in the natural systems and environmental interactions taking place all the time.  There's no set of rules that will create a banner harvest; so the more you strive to understand the soil, the climate, the pollinators, and the plants themselves, the more enjoyable the problem solving becomes.  Because there will always be problems, and there's always next year.

And so here I am, eight summers later, exploring ways to share my passion and humble advice with others.  I'm not here because I've perfected gardening.  I'm here because I love learning about gardening.  Every question I'm asked gives me a chance to either share what I've learned, or to pick up a book and learn something new.

When I first started tossing around the idea of creating some social media content and running workshops, I agonized over branding.  What do I want to share?  Who do I want this online persona to be?  Why should anyone listen to me?  I was paralyzed by the options.  Finally, my media savvy  best friend challenged me to get started and gave me a deadline.

Her advice?  Fake it 'til you make it.

Which is exactly the advice I've been giving to beginner gardeners for years!  Just get a seed in the ground and see what happens!  Watch it and learn.  Over-water it and learn.  Overcrowd it and learn. Go away on vacation and forget to ask the neighbour to care for it, but LEARN.  Be curious.  Be adventurous. Be resilient.  And sow it 'til you grow it!