Best Vegetables for Beginner Gardeners - The Top Ten

Beginner vegetable gardeners always ask what they should be growing.  In this posting, I provide guidance on the best choices for beginners.

Naturally, there is no perfect list because the "right" vegetables to grow depends on individual taste preference and the climate where the garden is located.  That notwithstanding, I believe it is possible to come up with a list that will work for most people.  My selections are based on the following criteria:

• Popular - I've focused my list on vegetables that I know are widely enjoyed and can be eaten in quantities that make it worth the effort to grow them.  This meant excluding some veggies that have otherwise desirable characteristics.  For example, radishes are very easy to grow and mature in under 25 days.  They are often recommended for new gardeners, but in all honesty, I think they are a poor selection.  Most people eat radishes in sparing quantities and they are not particularly good for families since most kids find them too bitter.
• Hardy- I've selected vegetables that can successfully be grown by most gardeners.  These are veggies that are temperature and water tolerant and relatively resistant to diseases and pests. They provide easy "wins" for new gardeners and for those that really don't want to spend lots of time in the garden.  
• Worth the Effort -  I've tried to select vegetables where the homegrown version is worth the extra effort versus purchasing them at a farmers market or supermarket.  Let me be clear... almost everything you grow in your garden will be better than store-bought because it will be fresher. However, there's a very big difference between a homegrown tomato and a store-bought one, and the same can't really be said of vegetables like celery or onions.  Likewise, there are some varieties of vegetables that are just not sold in the supermarket -- you're only choice is to grow them for yourself.  In all cases, I've tried to choose particularly interesting varieties within a class of vegetable to maximize the value of growing it at home.
• Quick - I've tried to selected vegetables that mature relatively quickly.  For example, Winter Squash are not on the list because they generally take over 100 days to mature. Again, the idea is to give new gardeners quick results.
• Low Maintenance and space requirements - I've tried to select veggies or varieties that don't require pruning and staking so they are low maintenance.   When possible, I've chosen varieties that also can be grown in containers.
• Heirlooms/Hybrids - Heirloom vegetables are the rage these days, but they are often lower yielding, and less pest/disease resistant than hybrids.  For certain vegetables, hybrids are probably better choices for new gardeners.  My list of recommendations specifies whether the variety is a hybrid or an heirloom.  If you're heart is set on growing only heirlooms, just check the seed catalogs and substitute a variety that's more to your liking for any of the hybrids on the list.

Top Ten Vegetables for New Gardeners (In ranked order):

1. Salad Greens- Lettuces and other salad greens are easy-to-grow, quick maturing and can be planted throughout the Spring, Summer and Fall.  They also provide some of the highest yields per square foot of anything you can grow in your garden.  Most folks like salads and home grown lettuce is high value add versus store-purchased because salad greens are highly perishable. (Store-purchased lettuce, even that sold in nitrogen-flushed bags, loses its nutritional value quickly.)  The easiest way to get a diverse selection of greens is to purchase a mesculin mix.  Companies like Burpee and Johnny's sell various blends of greens with different flavor profiles.  If you want to select individual lettuce varieties consider the following Spring and Fall varieties: Forellenschluss, an heirloom Austrian variety that is particularly cold tolerant, Brune D'hiver a French heirloom that also does well in cool weather.  During the heat of summer, lettuces generally do poorly, so switch to heat tolerant varieties such as Jericho, a hybrid Romaine-style lettuce and Buttercrunch a hybrid butter-head-style lettuce.  Lettuces require full sun.  If you only have partial sun, consider growing Miners Lettuce instead of traditional salad greens.  Miners Lettuce comes from the Pacific Northwest and is crunchy and mild.  It is a favorite in our family with both adults and kids.
   
   
   
2. Tomatoes - Tomatoes are probably the vegetable that are hardest to grow on this list.  I'm ranking them second because they are universally loved and offer the the highest returns on the gardeners effort versus of any vegetable that can be grown.  Determinate tomatoes require the least staking so they are the only ones on this list.  My recommendations include: Stupice a small, red, fast-producing heirloom tomato, Sungold, an orange, hybrid cherry tomato, Rutgers, a small dark red heirloom tomato that good both as a fresh tomato or for canning, and Grushovka an heirloom plum-shaped pink tomato that has excellent flavor. These varieties can be grown in 5 gallon containers and seeds are readily available at garden stores and on the Internet.  Determinate tomatoes produce a crop of tomatoes that ripen all at the same time.  To ensure a continuous harvest, plant every three to four weeks from April through June.  Tomatoes require a minimum of 6 hours direct sunlight.  Plant only if you have a place in your garden that gets full sun.
   
   
   Cucumbers - I like cucumbers for fresh eating and because they are the easiest of all vegetables to preserve (pickles).  My favorite fresh eating cuke is an heirloom variety called Beit Alpha.  The skin on this variety is so thin you don't need to peel it plus it's burp-less and has a good shelf life.  For pickling cucumbers, I like an heirloom German variety called Delikatesse.  Both these cucumbers need to be trellised.  If you don't want the bother of staking, try Picklebush, a hybrid pickling cucumber from Burpee or Bush Slicer a hybrid from Renee's Seeds.         
      
   

1. Potatoes - potatoes are so universally popular, versatile and easy to grow, that I think they should be in everyone's garden.  While shelf life can vary dramatically depending on the variety, most potatoes will easily keep for several months which means that they can be put away for enjoyment at a later date.  Potatoes are a cool season crop that can be grown prior to before other favorites like tomatoes or peppers and potatoes grow very well in pots.  An excellent all purpose potato for frying, mashing and baking is Maris Piper.  This variety from England is the potato that is traditionally used to make fish & chips.  It is not common in the U.S., but it can be purchased mail order from Ronniger Farms.  If you are a baked potato lover, try Russet or Russet Burbank.        
   
   
2. Carrots - Carrots can be planted from early Spring through mid-July and then again in the late summer for a Fall harvest.  I'm particularly fond of an heirloom variety called Red Core Chantenay.  This variety has a fine flavor and grows a root that's 5 to 7 inches in length.  Carrots can also be grown in pots if you choose a stubby, round variety like Atlas or Parisian.  Both of these smaller carrots are heirlooms.      
   
   
   
3. Peppers - Choose hot, sweet or a mix of the two.  Hot peppers are all fairly easy to grow so the choice of variety is really driven more by how hot you want your peppers.  For a mild hot pepper consider Ancho or Poblano.  For a medium hot pepper, I like Serrano peppers and for a burn your mouth off experience go for Habanero. For sweet peppers, I like Costa Rican Sweet, a hybrid variety from Burpee.  Peppers like rich, well drained soil and need warm days and nights to do well.  If you grow hot peppers, these can easily be dried in the sun, your oven or a food dehydrator.     
   
   
   
4. Broccoli - A cool season crop for planting in the Spring or Fall, broccoli is one of America's favorite vegetables.  It occupies a position that's fairly low on my list primarily because it to subject to a wide variety of pests such as caterpillars, grasshoppers, aphids, cabbage root maggot, and slugs.  The best way to control for pests is to place hoops with protective netting over them.  Otherwise, you need to consider some kind of pesticide.  Safer Products makes a variety of pesticides that are low impact on the environment.  If you decide you want to give broccoli a try, a good heirloom variety is Di Cicco. This variety produces a 4 inch main head and a large number of side shoots that will grow more intensely once the main head is harvested.  There are many varieties of hybrid broccoli and the best approach may be to buy them as plants from your local garden center as these will be appropriate for your area.  Alternatively, Belstar is a very adaptable hybrid variety.  You can find seeds for it at Johnny's Selected Seeds or Territorial Seed.   
   
   
5. Fresh Herbs - Fresh herbs really improve the flavor of food and are much less expensive to grow than to purchase from the grocery store.  Herbs are easy to grow and lend themselves well to pots and flower boxes.  The most important consideration when planting herbs in pots is to group herbs with similar sunlight requirements so that you can place your pot in an appropriate location. Full sun herbs include: Anise, Basil, Calendula, Catnip, Cilantro, Dill, Fennel, Lavender, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, Savory, Tarragon, and Thyme.  Partial sun herbs include: Chamomile, Chervil, Chives, Garlic, Lemon Balm, Marjoram, Mint, and Parsley.     
   
   
6. Summer Squash - Summer squash are can be both prolific and sweet.  The biggest challenge  growing summer squash is that most varieties are susceptible to disease, particularly Powdery Mildew and Mosaic Virus.  Golden Glory from Johnny's Selected seed is a disease resistant yellow squash but needs to be trellised.  If the above mentioned diseases are not a serious problem in your area (ask at your local garden center) choose a more compact variety that doesn't require staking such as Sunburst, a yellow patty-pan, or Raven a compact green zucchini.     
   
7. Green Beans - green beans are also very good producers.  To keep the workload to a minimum, I recommend growing bush varieties since these do not need to be trellised.  Burpee Tenderpod is a good choice as is Blue Lake Bush an heirloom variety.    
   

The Big One That Didn't Make the List and Why

1. Sweet Corn - I don't know a single person that doesn't love fresh sweet corn.  In fact, I would say it's ranks just behind tomatoes in popularity and for reason; when good, it is superbly delicious.  Unfortunately, a number of factors make it a poor crop for beginner gardeners.  The sad truth is that corn has a relatively low yield per square foot compared to other items that can be grown in the garden, so it's a bad investment if the gardener has limited space.  Additionally, corn must be grown in a minimum quantity in order to ensure proper pollination.  Generally speaking, a gardener needs to devote at least 16 square feet of of garden space to corn to ensure that the ears have fully formed kernels.  The problem is that all this corn will reach maturity at exactly the same time.  And corn deteriorates rapidly from superbly sweet to tasteless as sugars within the kernels convert quickly to starch once the ears have reached maturity.  To preserve corn's sweetness, home gardeners need to harvest the corn that can't be eaten by the family in a few days, shuck it, remove the kernels from the cobb, and then blanche and freeze them for future consumption. That's a lot of work. Couple this with the fact that good sweetcorn can now be found at most farmers markets and even the grocery store, and ratio of work required to produce it relative to what can be purchased isn't that great.  Sweet corn is a true delight, but I only recommend growing it to gardeners with some experience under their belts.