Easy Vegetables to Grow
LET YOUR TASTEBUDS BE YOUR GUIDE
Alpine
strawberries
A perennial, ever-
bearing type. Sow
seeds indoors in
early spring. Move
the plants into the
garden when they
are large enough
to handle, spacing
them 12 inches
apart.
Basil
This herb lasts
until frost if you
keep cutting the
tips so it doesn’t
flower too much
(leave some
blooms for the
bees). Tuck these
outside the
tomato cages.
Beets
A bed of beets
will give you
greens all season,
plus baby beets in
early summer and
large beets later.
Grow them
3 inches apart in
the row, or sow
1 inch apart and
thin gradually.
Broccoli
Look for varieties
with good side-shoot production.
They’ll continue
to bear once the
central head has
been harvested.
Close planting
( 12 inches apart)
also favors side
shoots.
Carrots
Sow in stone-free soil. Harvest
throughout the
summer, fall, and
even winter. Grow
both early and
late crops, spacing rows 6 inches
apart and plants
2 inches apart.
Cucumbers
A few plants are
enough. Even
one will provide
plenty for salads
and sandwiches.
Either trellis the
plants, 12 inches
apart, or let them
sprawl, allowing
4 to 6 square feet
per plant.
Lettuce
Grow three crops,
in spring, summer, and fall. In
hot weather grow
a resilient variety
such as Jericho.
Plant regular heads
12 inches apart;
miniheads, 8 to 10
inches apart.
Onions
Planting onion
sets (dime-size
onions) in spring
is easy. Just poke
them into the
ground, 4 inches
apart. After harvest, onions can
be stored at room
temperature.
Parsley
From a spring
sowing, you can
cut this herb
all summer, fall,
and even into
winter. Tuck in a
few plants out-
side the tomato
cages.
Pole beans These beans
bear over a long
season. On trel-
lises, grow plants
6 inches apart.
For single poles,
set poles 18 inches
apart, sowing
6 seeds at the
base of each and
thinning to 3.
Peppers
Nutritious to eat,
but expensive to
buy at your grocer. Grow some
hot, some sweet,
planting them
12 to 18 inches
apart. Peppers
need warmth
even more than
tomatoes do.
Salad mix
Seeds may include lettuces
and greens such
as arugula and
mizuna. Sow
them thickly and
harvest often,
cutting close to
the ground whenever leaves reach
3 inches tall.
Scallions
These nonbulbing
onions produce
abundantly from
seeds sown
½ inch apart. Or
plant onion sets
2 inches apart
and harvest every
other one at
scallion size.
Sugar snap peas
These are very
high-yielding
peas that you eat
pod and all. Grow
them on a trellis
(or on a twiggy
branch staked
in the ground)
with plants 3 to
4 inches apart.
Summer squash
One or 2 plants
are all you need
if you pick every
day or so to keep
them coming.
Allow about
9 square feet
for the plant to
sprawl.
Swiss chard
One of the few
greens that bears
all summer long,
and on into fall.
Grow plants 10
inches apart, or
sow more thickly
and eat what
you thin, as with
beets.
Tomatoes
Just 2 plants will
keep you in salads:
1 beefsteak and
1 cherry tomato.
Add a paste to-
mato for making
sauce. Plant them
2 to 3 feet apart.
Use cages for
support.
Tuscan kale
You have to try
this deep-blue-
green kale to
know how tender
and delicious it is.
Harvest all
summer and fall.
Space plants
12 inches apart
in rows. ;
