Vote: What's Your All-Time Favorite Veggie to Grow and Eat?

Today is Eat Your Vegetable Day! And, since I love polls, I thought I'd made one where we could all vote on our favorite vegetables. I'm using the "loose" definition of vegetable to include vegetable-like fruits, such as tomatoes, squash and beans.

This poll is in no way complete! If something's not on the list, tell me, and I'll add it!



Say below what's your favorite veg, why you like it, and how you like to eat it!

My favorite is Summer Squash.

I usually eat it boiled with onions.  I sometimes eat it raw. I also like it in a casserole.

Zucchini is by far my favorite vegetables. I love it sauteed in butter with onions, or sauteed with salsa and feta. I make a zucchini "spread" that I freeze and use all winter long in veggie sautes. Like for a burrito bowl veggie mix, I use an onion, some bell and poblano peppers (frozen), corn (frozen) and one 1/2 pint jar of zucchini spread. Or to eat with Italian sausage, I use an onion, some bell and italian frying peppers, fava beans, zucchini spread and pesto. I used to layer in baked pasta dishes as well, but I can't have very many carbs any more.

Cucumbers in salad or by themselves, and sometimes as pickles. We eat them daily.

Choose just one?! Uff, that's tough.

So many that I love (hello leeks, onions, garlic - hey was garlic on the list?, asparagus, artichokes, squash, sweet potatoes...), and we're eating loads of lambsquarters and chard fpr our greens these days, which I also love. Though I chose the humble potato, since it seems to be "the food of my people" and quite a comfort food at times.

That was confusing. It asked how many votes i wanted to cast, i said 4 for 4 different veggies, all 4 went to asparagus. I'll know better next time.

Asparagus for the plant once and you're done for 50 years. Thats permies 101.

Cabbage for saurkraut, something that can be stored.

Tomatos.  Been taking excess tomatos and making tomato soup for the wife. No reason to let excess spoil. So many ways to use it.

Potatos cuz they can feed a lot of people.

Last was sweet potato. Because its a tradition at the Thanksgiving table and i can grow them for that.

Hi Wayne! You should be able to re-allocate your "apples" so all four don't go to one thing. If you click the button, you should be able to change the votes. If that doesn't work, you can click the button, and then vote again. It looks like most people have just put one apple to their favorite veg.

With some polls, it's hand to have lots of apples so you can weigh your votes--like if the voting is for best staple crops, people tended to vote for multiple crops, giving their favorites the most apples. Usually no one puts more than around 10 apples on any thing (I could technically stick 1000 apples on something, but that'd totally skew the results!).

We're hoping to improve the apple polls to be more user-friendly, but our awesome forum programmers are busy right now!

I actually haven't met a vegetable yet I haven't liked in some form or other, but for so many different tastes, their versatility, and availability, it would have to be tomatoes.

I grow and eat more squash than any other crop. Maxima is by far my favorite squash.

I just realized I never said what my favorite vegetable is. I think my favorite flavor-wise is either nettle or artichoke. Artichokes bring forth many happy memories of eating them with my mom, so I listed that as my "favorite." I have two artichoke plants--They're perenials and I'm hoping they'll produce and I'll have a nice supply of artichokes for many years to come!

Potatoes are the most vitamin-dense, versitile, and calorie dense of the veggies listed. I also can successfully grow them--which really makes me love them!

My kids' favorite vegetable to eat is chives/green onions. They especially love munching on the flowers--they eat them all and they never get a chance to go to seed!

I voted for 2 but many on that list that I love & have success growing.

#1. Asparagus. Like Wayne said it's a long term plant. Plus, in my opinion, the biggest difference in flavor between garden fresh & store bought compared to any other veggie. One of the more expensive store bought veggies so from a cost benefit standpoint it's well worth the time & effort. It's also a very early crop so it's harvestable when not much else is. For 6 weeks at the end of every winter I saute' those tasty babies in a little butter. Or wrap them in bacon & grill them. Or part of a salad. Or in a fresh egg omelette. Creamed asparagus soup. They're pretty awesome slightly steamed then drenched in real honey too.

#2. Seminole pumpkin. Again, another long term plant in suitable climates. Not perennial but self seeding. Haven't been messing with them too many years but they've done great since moving away from the heat of Tejas. One plant can provide a lot of food. The very young green pumpkins are good boiled & eaten like potatos. They make delicious bread. Excellent pies. My favorite way to eat it is cookies. It dehydrates & stores well & can be ground into a flour. Last year I gave some away that accidentally rolled down a big hill & smashed into their neighbors house. So there's that possibility. Jack o' lanterns. My post Halloween hillbilly variation of that is Jack o' lantern target practice. That evolved into a dozen or so wooden nutcracker soldiers guarding a pumpkin pile conveniently placed on top of the compost pile. What a mess. Not sure how many I have this year but waaaay more than we can eat. I'm kind of thinking they're a seed ball in & of themselves. Ran out of planting time this year but next year there will be pumpkins growing in some strange places:)  

I know I know. We're not supposed to play with our vegetables.

I tried to clear the extra votes on asparagus. Each time i tried it said an error occured.

wayne fajkus wrote:I tried to clear the extra votes on asparagus. Each time i tried it said an error occured.

Weird, it worked  for me. I wonder if there's a glitch? Does anyone else have trouble clearing their votes?

New veg for me but I have been loving orach

Great answers here, loving the knowledge on the humble squash.

My father used to tell me stories how in germany when he was growing up, people while harvesting would cut open the pumpkins, take out the seeds, and throw the pumpkins back onto the field. He said it was considered poor mans/uneatable food....i guess it might have depended on the variety but thats intense.

Anyhow, preference has got to be either Garlic (!yum on pretty much everything!) or the humble sweet potato - a survivor and big producer when done right. And, sweet potato fries anyone?! Yes, yes please.

Thanks for this!

ugh

Nightshades and cucurbits are vegetables, and fruits. The two are not mutually exclusive, as vegetable is a culinary rather than taxonomic term.

oh yeah cauliflower I love it deep-fried but will eat it any old way.

Most used vege in my life is onion. Pretty much daily I'm adding onion to whatever I'm cooking... Favorite probably a toss up tween sweet potatoes and tomatoes...

If you look at the dictionary definition of vegetable (although even dictionaries differ on their definition), it basically tells you that anything edible that comes from a plant is a vegetable (that includes the fruit). I grew up thinking it had to be anything but the fruit—but I guess I was wrong.

It's also worth noting that things like melons, watermelons, ground cherries, and such are usually listed under the vegetable section at seed stores, right along with radishes and cabbage.

Also, watermelons are usually excluded from the melons section (which is generally reserved for all other kinds of melons—especially C. melo).

The fruit section at seed and plant stores tends to be for sweet, fruiting perennials (like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, peaches, apples, pears, plums, cherries, and such).

But yeah, I like the botanical definition of fruit (for most gardening purposes). It doesn't have to be sweet. However, if I describe something as fruity, I hope you know I'm not saying it tastes like zucchini.

They should make a new kind of fruit cereal with the following flavors in it:

* Pumpkin
* Tomato
* Okra
* Eggplant

You can get some pretty fruity-tasting pumpkins and tomatoes, though (e.g. Blue Doll F1 and Gardener's Delight). Well, I guess Gardener's Delight is more like those vitamin C that taste like candy than fruit, and Blue Doll F1 is more like pumpkin pie than a cherry (although it smells really fruity in a melon-like sort of way)—but you get the idea.

Black eyed peas are worthy of being on the list.

My favorite is sweet potato (Beauregard).   Easy to grow in abundance with little care, no pests.  They last about 10 months in storage so it's a food that's ideal for survival.   I like the greens as well as the tuber.  I don't like to cook or added sugar so my usual fare is raw sweet potato sticks always on the counter for snacks (like carrot sticks), and roasted wedges with herbs for a side dish or on a salad.   They are a super nutrient food, lots of potassium and fiber.  According to a fitness guru they offer the most nutrition for the fewest calories.

Sunchokes! AKA Jerusalem Artichokes, Sunroots and Fartichokes!
So easy to grow > too easy for some! It can become invasive in the wrong locations where you can't mow closely to keep it contained. I've got three varieties, Stampede, a white knobby tuber with a 5' - 6' top and flowers tender enough and tasty enough to toss in salads. A red knobby one that I found last year in a small flower bed in town. Folks had no idea what they had. I got three tubers and divided them for the first time last fall. They are exactly like the Stampede, except for the color of the roots. I haven't sampled them yet. The third is a white, straight, smooth root that looks like white carrots with a 10' - 12' top! Very aggressive, have to stay on top of the mowing to keep these ones contained. I'd guess they're a feral or wild Fuseau type. The flowers are so tough they're chewable only after they've been steamed or boiled ... a lot like squash when done. When cooking these roots, the Fuseau, they give off a bit of an odor, not bad but not great either. I only use these Fuseau for canning.
I live in-town so they make a great late summer into fall privacy screen and they soak up a lot of traffic noise too, especially those tall Fuseaus.
I've had them raw, boiled, canned like regular potatoes, pickles and relish. We've used the canned plain ones in stews and soups. They are GOOD! Any way you can prepare potatoes, cukes, squash, turnips, etc., you can do the same with Sunchokes. I tried to ferment some, but they came out musty. If I try again, I'll use a lot more salt. I'm getting enough that this year I'm thinking about drying some as chips and some to grind into flour. Its a great thickener, and makes dishes very creamy. We're also going to do some roasting and grilling and maybe some of the high-fallutin restaurant recipes - that don't cost an arm and a leg for the ingredients!
Its the inulin starch in them that causes gas for some people. Bean-o doesn't help at all, but if you start with very small helpings and have them just about every day, you can easily build up to good sized helpings in a week or two. The inulin helps balance the gut micro flora to where it should be. Pure Inulin powder is used to treat IBS, GERD, Crohn's, Diverticulitis and some other intestinal issues. I prefer using the natural inulin in the Fartichokes! I can eat as much as I want and not get gas now, and my guts feel and work great.
I made wine from flowers last year using only flower broth, sugar and a small handful of raisins for natural yeast. Very different, for sure not fruity! I'd have to get used to it to have it as a drinking wine just because its so-o different, but its still aging and I'm sure that it would be a great cooking wine. I'm going to try some more flower wine this fall and I'll mix in some elderberries, high bush cranberries and some others, maybe some herbs and mint too to see how they turn out. I have to see how many one gallon batches I can prepare for.

Garlic - whole bulbs roasted, fermented in brine, crushed and cooked in most meals, dehydrated, sliced and included in sauerkraut, shallots because they are more versatile than onions.

Pretty much my favorite is whatever is in season today because I'll probably be eating it for a few days to a few weeks. My goal is to store (as in canning, freezing) as little as possible and instead to eat as much as possible fresh from the garden.

I cast 446 votes for Swiss chard. I hope that doesn't mess up some algorithm.

My reasons are simple. You have to plant it once around here and it seems to just keep going. The bugs don't bother it much and it seems to thrive in all conditions. So it's not something you really have to grow, so much as harvest.

Potatoes. No question about it for me.

My favorites are the ones that you plant once and they keep coming: asparagus, artichokes, curly mallow, scorzonera, leeks, earth chestnut, including feral "natural vegetables", like bitter cress, dandelion and cat's paws.
John S
PDX OR

Somehow I missed this survey. Dale's voting brought it to light. Wow, Dale, it now looks like permies eat lots of chard!!!

I voted but spread my votes among my most favorite veggies. I choose those veggies that I could eat every day and not get tired if them. And the most yummy ones I gave extra votes.

I love mustard. It is super easy to grow and harvest and cook. The greens are tasty sauteed in bacon grease with a spritz of malt vinegar. To me, nothing says spring quite like the first mustard greens of the growing season. Aside from peas, which I eat raw while standing in the garden, they are the first thing to come ripe.

Su Ba wrote:Somehow I missed this survey. Dale's voting brought it to light. Wow, Dale, it now looks like permies eat lots of chard!!!

I voted but spread my votes among my most favorite veggies. I choose those veggies that I could eat every day and not get tired if them. And the most yummy ones I gave extra votes.

I was tired. When I saw it next time, I thought maybe it wasn't a contest for me to win.

What, so no winter squash? If it gets put up there, my votes are for winter squash, butternut, specifically.

My first was an overlooked volunteer in my first hugelbeet that grew in with my cucumbers. I went from going, "My, those are large cucumber leaves," to, "Oh, my, those aren't cucumbers."

The first I found sat comfortably in my hand, but overlapped it, and reached up to my mid-bicep. I am a little over six feet tall, so that was one hell of a squash, and fat too.

-CK

Im not sure which would be my all time fav, but the one vegetable I wouldn't want to go without is the good old spud. Mashed, baked, chipped, sauteed, daufinoise, boiled, or in  succulent Spanish tortilla.

I'm disappointed. I mean, I eat garlic with everything, but there's no mention of Butternut Squash, or any winter squash at all. Could we remedy that, or do I vote for garlic?

-CK

There's pumpkin, which is a winter squash. I can edit the pumpkin one to say "pumpkin/winter squash"...or just add winter squash at the end of the list (I can't add anything in the middle of the list without messing up all the votes)

And, you can vote for BOTH squash and garlic, just give the one you like more apples :D

Okay, either works. Do votes consume apples?

-CK

Nope, votes don't consume apples. I could potentially shove 1775 apples on this thing, and still have them by my name, too. But, I couldn't vote MORE than 1775 votes. The apples just indicate how many votes you get.

I'll go stick winter squash on the pumpkin one, since that's  how seed catalogs like to list it...

Groovy.

-CK

I picked pumpkins- so purdy, all big and orange- but I had to think hard about pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, and peanuts. Also, I love to grow and eat beans- dry beans.
Note: Peanuts are not on there.