Easiest Vegetable to Grow

Easiest vegetable to grow in my climate is the kale family, especially Lacinato (dino) kale. It doesn't bolt as quickly as other types, and grows well in large containers or the ground. The trunks can get very large and I just keep picking off the lower leaves. Also Portuguese Kale, which is really a type of Collard similar to Georgia Collard, but with even larger leaves. My Georgia had yellow flowers like most kales, whereas the Portuguese Kale had white flowers. This plant became perennial and green most of the year, even in the mild frosts that we have here, in N. California coast inland valley.

Salad greens like lettuce or spinach if you like raw salads. Mustard greens or kale if you like or want to try cooking greens. Try growing them with Carol Deppe’s eat all greens method so you can harvest the whole plants to maximize yield.

Steve Thorn wrote:What would you recommend to a brand new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

For me and my area, I would recommend cucumbers!

These were one of the first things I personally grew, and survived when everything else didn't do so well.

Reasons I would recommend them...

1) They sprout easily from being planted directly in the soil.

2) They grow quickly, usually even in poor soils.

3) They can grow among weeds due to their fast growth and climbing vines.

Can you think of anything I've missed about cucumbers being easy to grow?

What would you recommend to a new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

I must suggest carrots, radish, peas.

Steve Thorn wrote:What would you recommend to a brand new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

For me and my area, I would recommend cucumbers!

These were one of the first things I personally grew, and survived when everything else didn't do so well.

Reasons I would recommend them...

1) They sprout easily from being planted directly in the soil.

2) They grow quickly, usually even in poor soils.

3) They can grow among weeds due to their fast growth and climbing vines.

Can you think of anything I've missed about cucumbers being easy to grow?

What would you recommend to a new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

I would recommend Bell pepper because I tried out growing bell pepper from scrap last year last summer, and it turned out surprisingly great. It took hardly two months to grow completely, and I must say it was the easiest vegetable I ever grew on my lawn. Also, when it comes to nutrition, bell pepper contains fats of less than 1 gram, and also it is rich in multiple vitamins and low in calories and carbohydrates.  

Dandelions are prolific here.  The young leaves make nutritious salad greens and The root can be dried and roasted to make coffee.

I would suggest what folks always suggest when you are trying to engage children in gardening: Radishes. They  sprout very quickly and give you a crop in 21-25 days. They are not fussy when it comes to soil type and they are very forgiving. Also, they grow well in cold weather.

I am in Southern Wisconsin, zone 5a. We have legendary soil here, "Black Earth," and relatively few pests, from what I understand. Lots of beetles but they're fairly easily trapped (I've not had to; they've left my yard alone), but plenty of deer and rabbits. A simple scarecrow of sweaty clothes can help keep them at bay (just hang the garments up around the garden) OR little mesh/thin cloth baggies of human hair from the hairbrush! Put them on stakes, cages, on the fence if you have one, or wherever they can be hung up off the ground. One baggie of hair should cover at least 3m radius of garden. The scent of hooman is what you're after to spook critters away. Cats & dogs are good at spookin', too.

Here are the easiest, most prolific plants I've had:

1. Kohlrabi, Brassica olearcea. It's radish-like, biggish, with edible leaves. Tasty both raw and cooked!

2. Black Mustard, Brassica nigra. (only variety with which I have experience) I am so in love with this plant. Planted a Mesclun mix seed packet one year, and almost all the plants continued to self-seed, but the mustard was most robust! It will take the f*** over!! Leave them close together for leggy plants (bolted) with lots of seeds for your dhal, curry, prepared mustard, or medicinal salve, poultice, or hot compress (can help fight winter illness), or give each plant a good meter radius of space for some serious leaves!! I s**t you not, each plant can grow to a meter wide at the base, and like 2m tall. The old leaves at the bottom get super large and the plant tapers up like a cone, with the mild young leaves near the top. Then the cute yellow flowers shoot up and it's rather majestic, if you ask me. The leaves are piquant, especially as they get mature and large. Beloved by bees!

3. Beets, Beta vulgaris. (I just learned these are in the amaranth family! Redness!) Surprised no one has mentioned these beauties because they are a staple in Wisconsin veggie gardens. Maybe other soils cannot support them? I love them raw, roasted (with a little oil or ghee and wrapped in its own leaf 😉), and pickled, and the greens are my favorite of them all, and they are huuuuge! I've never done so, but I'm sure a dye could be prepared from these, and also sugar!

Bonus herb (not a vegetable): Garden sage, Salvia officinalis. It is a hardy evergreen subshrub that actually survives Wisconsin's harsh winters! You can pluck aromatic leaves all year round!! It is such an impressive plant to me; I love the woody trunk and its gnarly forms. Also beloved by bees!

I have three years experience as a beginning gardener and, while I haven't figured out all the ways to do it wrong yet, I can offer this advice:

1. Get starts from a neighbor or local farmers' market. If you must start from seed then grow radishes.
2. If you live in a sometimes cool sometimes hot place, try 5-6 different plants, a mix of spring and summer crops. Then when it is a bad year for tomatoes, at least you will have some lettuce. Up here it seems like between peas, lettuce, tomatoes and winter squash, something will survive to the table.

Sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes). If you can’t find some wild ones they sometimes have the tubers at Whole Foods or you can order them online.

Jan White wrote:Peas are way up there for me, too.

Everyone says radishes are super easy, but I can rarely grow them without them bolting.  We just don't really have a spring here most years - it's cold, cold, cold, HOT.  Now rat-tail radishes on the other hand, those I can do.  The only problem is picking them fast enough!

My favourite easy, torture them as much as I want and still get a decent crop vegetables are tomatoes, ground cherries, and squash.

I am not sure you know this, but when radishes bolt, they make these bean like spicy seed pods that’s so delicious that I let some of mine bolt on purpose .

My top three: Lettuce, snap peas, okra.

I may have to go out there, the sun is shining. I have a hard time deciding what the best & easiest veggie is, and bang for energy buck matters too, I think. But I have a bunch that merely need 1) disturbance of the soil 2) to be allowed to set seed. And they are about 75% of my garden and they even move into my small lawn areas. OK, I live in a cool Mediterranean climate, so it figures I would go with Mediterranean crops, eh? So: Radicchio chicory, Parsnip (a Roman staple, eh?) Italian mustard, and Collards (well, isn't there a Rome in Georgia?) Bonus points: all of these have flowers which are awesome attractive for beneficial insects. I can go out there right now and harvest any of these, and all I did was disturb the soil by pulling weeds I don't want, and water in the dry spells. OK. Sun's out for awhile yet, the snow melted and dinnertime is nigh, I'ma out to harvest, then make dinner.

A quick radish alternative, if you're like me and they bite you back: baby turnips! I've planted a Japanese one called "Hakurei" which turned out lovely little snow-white radish lookalikes, but with NO heat and much more sweetness. Plus, the greens don't get as coarse/spiky.

Roma tomatoes, leeks (just about any breed), cucumber, and mint grow like weeds in SE Ohio. Even on a rocky hillside where my cabin is. My Romas are basically perennial at this point. Started with a couple whole tomatoes that I didn't get to eat so I just quartered and planted them. They ended up taking over a 12'x12' plot the following year and I ended up having to move my onions to another area.

Mint will go crazy if left unchecked but it is good in hanging baskets to keep wasps away.

Cukes, sure. And all manner of summer squash. I think that's why everyone is always trying to give away zucchini when they overplant. And it is easy to overplant.

j

Steve Thorn wrote:What would you recommend to a brand new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

For me and my area, I would recommend cucumbers!

These were one of the first things I personally grew, and survived when everything else didn't do so well.

Reasons I would recommend them...

1) They sprout easily from being planted directly in the soil.

2) They grow quickly, usually even in poor soils.

3) They can grow among weeds due to their fast growth and climbing vines.

Can you think of anything I've missed about cucumbers being easy to grow?

What would you recommend to a new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

Popular thread!! Hopefully I haven't already commented?  ...not really in the mood to read thru 5 pages right now :) just want to say for me it seems to be sweet potatoes - northeastern Kentucky.

Sure, the harvest is not so easy but the question asked easiest to grow!

I plant slips, add a little layer of home made compost (consistin mainly of the same stuff I mulch with) then mulch with hay, leaves, grass clippings, etc and pull out grass that tries to come thru...the vines really start to take off after about a month and from thete will need basically 0 maintenence as they do a good job smothering out competition on thier own!

Where I live, summer squash, winter squash (moschata varieties for SVB resistance) and welsh or walking onions are quite easy.

I'm going to put my vote in for perennial kale. You can harvest at least a little year round here and for propagation just stick a small sideshoot in the ground in spring and you will soon have a new plant. Perennial vegetables in general can be much easier to look after once you have them established.

Nancy Reading wrote: ... perennial kale. You can harvest at least a little year round here and for propagation just stick a small sideshoot in the ground in spring and you will soon have a new plant.

Now I want some of that! My ducks and chickens adore kale, even if I have difficulty getting my 2-legs to eat it!

PARSNIPS::
 Shallow planting, heck they'll even propagate just falling on the ground by themselves.
They can overwinter without mulch even in Minnesota at -40°.
After overwintering they'll come up and go to seed without any  coaxing at all. And after going to seed they'll leave you with literally I think, millions of seeds.
We can't get them to stop sprouting and seading All over the garden.
So as far as easy goes once you plant parsnips you'll never have to plant them again! (Very little exaggeration there)

Steve Thorn wrote:

Mike Barkley wrote:Swiss Chard & kales & sweet potatos thrive here in loose soil with some good compost added. Black eyed peas & TN Valencia peanut do good in our unamended clay soil. While not a vegetable buckwheat is super easy to grow & very versatile. Seminole pumpkins need quality soil & a lot of space but are easy to grow under those conditions. They all produce a lot of easy to grow food.

Sweet potatos grow like a weed here, and they are so good.

I love chard too, probably my favorite green!

Peanuts are pretty easy once past germination.

But Jerusalem artichokes/sunchokes are the easiest vegetable to grow in the world. plant a tuber and you will never lack them again! thats all there is to it

potatoes are also super easy, especially if you grow the varieties that don’t need hilling. They would be better for a beginner gardener if they have taste buds not accustomed to Sunchokes.

In a warmer temperate or tropical climate, sweet potatoes trump the sunchokes. As soon as you have slips, you can make cuttings and expand the patch. If you don’t get frost, then they keep growing all year and you can just keep replanting the vines as you dig out the roots. They strike cuttings super quickly (they have root nodes ready to go along the vines) and grow so incredibly fast in warm weather that you can see the difference between morn and night.


Folks say that Dioscorea yams are great too, so I am planning on trying Chinese yam (Dioscorea Polystacha) which is more cold tolerant than D. Alata.

Steve Thorn wrote:What would you recommend to a new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

While not the 'sexiest' vegetable, turnips are bulletproof. I can just chuck some seeds out by hand on some dirt and forget about them. In a few months there are big purple topped globes sticking out of the soil! I'd say radishes and beets are very similar in results in my growing area.

I have some tenacious tomato volunteers that have been popping up year after year, small and delicious. I don't plant them so do they count?

Perennial Arugula, Diplotaxis tenuifolia, is a wild green from Mediterranean climates that is extremely deep-rooted and drought-tolerant. It's so easy to grow that it is more or less self-tending, even on rocky banks and other less-fertile places, and it volunteers often enough outside of the garden beds that we don't need to worry about sowing it anymore. https://www.quailseeds.com/store/p295/Perennial_Arugula%2C_Rucola_selvatica%2C_Wild_Rocket_%22Sylvetta.html Of course it's lusher when there's water or nutrients, and we have massive clumps around our compost piles and near the chicken run. I've discovered that it's good cooked in pasta and soups, so I get a lot of use out of something I don't really have to tend.

Perpetual Spinach is  easy to grow, and higher-yielding than other leafy greens like kale. It's a type of chard that is milder-flavored, more tender, and more resistant to both heat and cold than regular "Swiss" type chard. Unlike many other perennials, it's also easy and quick to sprout, about the same as regular annual chard. The leaves regrow so quickly after picking that I find I get more meals per square foot than I do from other veg. https://www.quailseeds.com/store/p9/Perpetual_Spinach_%28Leafbeet%29_Chard.html


Collards are also extremely easy in my climate, and the Old Timey Blue variety has proven perennial for me as well as providing food both summer and winter. https://www.quailseeds.com/store/p337/Old-Timey_Blue_Collards.html

Steve Thorn wrote:What would you recommend to a brand new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

For me and my area, I would recommend cucumbers!

Can you think of anything I've missed about cucumbers being easy to grow?

Wow! You are lucky!
What climate are you in?
cucumbers and Okra are the plants I’ve had the *hardest* time with in our Mediterranean climate. They seem incredibly fussy!

Easiest: potatoes and parsley (in shade), artichokes, celery (more shaded), nettles, chives, chard -pretty much perennial here and reseeds easily.

Fava beans are the only vegetable I had success with for the first couple of years.
Cardoons do well with little care. They were my second success.
I think the third was mountain papaya. Thrives with little care but took a few years to bear.
Chard grows but I don't like it. I finally killed it on purpose.
Perennial buckwheat is easy and makes a very well-flavored spinach substitute.
I finally have some perennial kale going - ot maybe it's normal kale that I'm harvesting as a perennial. I can't keep purple tree collards going. Daubenton's kale might do OK if it ever got any water.
Chilacayote thrives but is next to useless.
I got a little chicory and a few peas, a coupla string beans, some celery.
Pellitory-of-the-wall is pretty intervention-free, but quite boring. I got nettles established but someone requested I remove them.
I have established dandelions and eat them regularly, so at this point they are among the easiest.
Runner beans are pretty easy.
Rhubarb does OK.
I get a few potatoes from some I planted years ago.
I get a small crop of yacon pretty dependably.
I have failed radishes, squash (summer and winter both), onions, jerusalem artichokes (topinambour), turnips, tomatoes, arugula, lettuce, chayote, amaranth, yams, sweet potatoes, purslane and probably several others.
Mulberry leaves and grape leaves are easy, but grape leaves are fairly special-purpose.
Sochan is succeeding, slowly. I imagine it will pick up in a year or two.
Violet leaves are easy, but not great. I tend to forget to use them. Maybe that's because they're in the front yard and I go in back to harvest dinner.
Asparagus is pretty easy to keep alive, but hard to get to be prolific.
Artichokes ditto.
Several people mentioned aloe. How do you use aloe as a vegetable?

Ellen Lewis wrote:...
Several people mentioned aloe. How do you use aloe as a vegetable?

Yes, I saw my own comment of some years ago: Aloe vera is easy to grow as a houseplant. But I don't eat it as a vegetable!
The most common use is on the skin, for burns, cuts and scratches.
It can also be used as a remedy for 'cold' and 'flu': mix half a jar of honey with one large Aloe leaf in a blender (it becomes a green foamy 'slime', but the foam will go down later). Use 1 tablespoon full twice a day (morning and evening). The honey makes it sweet, but still you taste the very bitter Aloe. Probably it helps because it's bitter (there's an old Dutch saying 'bitter in de mond maakt het hart gezond', 'bitter in the mouth makes the heart healthy').

For how many years I have my allotment garden now? Is this the fifth year already? Still my opinion is: chard is the easiest to grow. I don't have to do anything. It's self-seeding, it doesn't need watering, it grows between 'weeds' or between other vegetables and it can be harvested in any time of the year.
Of course this is in my local climate (moderate and more wet than dry) and soil (peaty sand).

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Ellen Lewis wrote:...
Several people mentioned aloe. How do you use aloe as a vegetable?

Yes, I saw my own comment of some years ago: Aloe vera is easy to grow as a houseplant. But I don't eat it as a vegetable!
The most common use is on the skin, for burns, cuts and scratches.
It can also be used as a remedy for 'cold' and 'flu': mix half a jar of honey with one large Aloe leaf in a blender (it becomes a green foamy 'slime', but the foam will go down later). Use 1 tablespoon full twice a day (morning and evening). The honey makes it sweet, but still you taste the very bitter Aloe. Probably it helps because it's bitter (there's an old Dutch saying 'bitter in de mond maakt het hart gezond', 'bitter in the mouth makes the heart healthy').

I just want to throw some caution and info here about the use of aloe internally:

The gel inside the green parts has been shown to be healing for wounds, cosmetics, GI tract, and beyond.

HOWEVER, the green outer parts of the aloe leaf, the “bitter” parts mentioned above, are a GI irritant (certain compounds in it are somewhat toxic) and thus are basically a very effective laxative.
Concerningly, there are studies that show the green parts can cause GI cancers with prolonged exposure - (probably due to its irritating qualities long term). These studies have been done on rats, not humans, however the results are not ambiguous, they were clear.

This study uses whole leaf and doesn’t differentiate inner and outer leaf, which sadly was an oversight, but nevertheless:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3537128/

And this paper from the Williams Cancer institute goes into the mechanisms and the compounds responsible, with clarity and a little more depth:

https://williamscancerinstitute.com/aloe-vera-what-science-is-discovering-about-its-possible-cancer-links/

Anyway, one can effectively use the clear gel externally or internally, medicinally, it has very few of these irritant compounds, but the green parts might be best for constipation issues only, sporadically.
And there may be better plants or compounds for that purpose anyway, that aren’t associated with carcinogenesis.

Sorry for not reading the whole thread, but I nominate pole beans. Specifically, Southern Appalachian Greasy Beans, and some of the beans grown by the Cherokee and SW USA tribes.
No hybrids, only open pollinated heirloom varieties.
All they need is support ~ sections of fencing on tee posts, tripods made out of long poles, anything sturdy. Pick and eat or freeze/can them green after the pods swell out with the seeds (protein), and leave a bunch on the vines to dry for dry bean eating and seeds for next year.

Literally just plant and pick.

I see a lot of mentions of the brassicas, and they are indeed easy and healthy to eat. Unfortunately, mine became magnets for cabbage moths. Those little white and yellow moths lay egg pods on the underside of the leaves, and within days, the green worms can skeletonize an entire plant. I am in the second year of planting no brassicas to try and break their cycle.
Happily, I have random kale and rapini plants self seeded which not being in a convenient row, seem to get overlooked being among plants the cabbage moths ignore.

Nettles
.
.
.dammit

tuffy monteverdi wrote:...
...
I just want to throw some caution and info here about the use of aloe internally:

The gel inside the green parts has been shown to be healing for wounds, cosmetics, GI tract, and beyond.

HOWEVER, the green outer parts of the aloe leaf, the “bitter” parts mentioned above, are a GI irritant (certain compounds in it are somewhat toxic) and thus are basically a very effective laxative.
Concerningly, there are studies that show the green parts can cause GI cancers with prolonged exposure - (probably due to its irritating qualities long term). These studies have been done on rats, not humans, however the results are not ambiguous, they were clear.

This study uses whole leaf and doesn’t differentiate inner and outer leaf, which sadly was an oversight, but nevertheless:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3537128/

And this paper from the Williams Cancer institute goes into the mechanisms and the compounds responsible, with clarity and a little more depth:

https://williamscancerinstitute.com/aloe-vera-what-science-is-discovering-about-its-possible-cancer-links/

Anyway, one can effectively use the clear gel externally or internally, medicinally, it has very few of these irritant compounds, but the green parts might be best for constipation issues only, sporadically.
And there may be better plants or compounds for that purpose anyway, that aren’t associated with carcinogenesis.

I have had comments before on this subject. Possibly it's true and the green parts can cause cancer.

This was an old traditional way for the use of Aloe, from an era before any research on cancer. It was known on the island of Curaçao (Netherlands' Antilles in the Caribbean), where Aloe is a very common plant (although it might have been 'imported' by African people during the 'slave trade'). My (late) husband, who was from there, used it. Not constantly, but the amount made of one leaf until that was all used up.

After he died I used it once or twice too. I never had problems with it being laxative or irritant. Of course I don't know if I'll get cancer. My husband did die, but he didn't have cancer.

Not super common, but the easiest most versatile plant I grow is Seombadi/Korean Celery/Dystaenia takesimana.  This stuff is amazing.  Zone 6b temperate NE in the US- it is a perennial and overwinters without any difficulty, can brush snow aside and harvest lightly even in Feb or March.  It's now started to self seed and I'm happily giving seedlings away the my unsuspecting neighbors.  Mild flavor, depending of the age of the shoot and leaf it can be used in salads, stir fry, or soups.  Also while the groundhog and rabbits eat it, they don't decimate it like other plants (any brassicas, or squash varieties I try to grow that's not fully fenced).  Attached is a pic from early April this year after a very hard winter and not much else is green yet.

Emirene Backues wrote:Not super common, but the easiest most versatile plant I grow is Seombadi/Korean Celery/Dystaenia takesimana.  This stuff is amazing.  Zone 6b temperate NE in the US- it is a perennial and overwinters without any difficulty, can brush snow aside and harvest lightly even in Feb or March.  It's now started to self seed and I'm happily giving seedlings away the my unsuspecting neighbors.  Mild flavor, depending of the age of the shoot and leaf it can be used in salads, stir fry, or soups.  Also while the groundhog and rabbits eat it, they don't decimate it like other plants (any brassicas, or squash varieties I try to grow that's not fully fenced).  Attached is a pic from early April this year after a very hard winter and not much else is green yet.

Fascinating!
I have not heard of this plant
Is the stalk as crunchy and juicy as regular celery or is it a bit tough and stringy (like other wild celery relatives).
Also, is it a problem to differentiate wild celery from the poisonous relatives: water hemlock and poison hemlock?

Fascinating!
I have not heard of this plant
Is the stalk as crunchy and juicy as regular celery or is it a bit tough and stringy (like other wild celery relatives).
Also, is it a problem to differentiate wild celery from the poisonous relatives: water hemlock and poison hemlock?

It is a bit tough and stringy as it grows.  The young shoots you can eat in a salad- the older ones do better cooked.  It doesn't look super similar to poison hemlock to me, but this is native to an island off South Korea and is not currently naturalized in the US as far as I know.  It's the easiest plant I grow in my gardens and I love that it's simple to prepare/cook.

Emirene Backues wrote:Not super common, but the easiest most versatile plant I grow is Seombadi/Korean Celery/Dystaenia takesimana.  This stuff is amazing.  Zone 6b temperate NE in the US- it is a perennial and overwinters without any difficulty, can brush snow aside and harvest lightly even in Feb or March.  It's now started to self seed and I'm happily giving seedlings away the my unsuspecting neighbors.  Mild flavor, depending of the age of the shoot and leaf it can be used in salads, stir fry, or soups.  Also while the groundhog and rabbits eat it, they don't decimate it like other plants (any brassicas, or squash varieties I try to grow that's not fully fenced).  Attached is a pic from early April this year after a very hard winter and not much else is green yet.

I did not know this plant. But it reminds me of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum). It looks different, but it's in the same family and the taste is somewhat like cellery too. Also perennial (and not bi-annual like ordinary cellery).

Courgettes for me. Chuck a seed in decent soil, give it some water, and it basically does the rest. The only problem is you end up with more courgettes than you know what to do with by August. Radishes are probably even easier but they're not exactly exciting to grow.