10 Vegetable Gardening Tips for Absolute Beginners

These 10 vegetables are easy to grow in pots or plots and there are vegetables in this list to suit gardens of all sizes.

Growing your own veggies need not be complicated and even if you’ve never gardened before, you will find success with these hardy crops.

Salad Leaves

Crunchy leaves not only add a range of textures to salads, but also a fantastic variety of flavours.

There are many lettuce and salad leaf variety seed packs which can be sowed throughout summer and you could be cutting fresh leaves in just a few short weeks. They will continue to grow so you can harvest again and again.

Spring Onions and Radishes

Spring onions and radishes are so easy to grow that we have put them together in one category!

Spice up your salads with peppery radishes and crunchy spring onion, and both grow happily in pots or directly in the ground throughout summer.

Potatoes

Plant potatoes during late February and March in paper potato bags that are partly filled with compost, and when the green shoots begin to appear above the soil, simply cover them with more compost.

Repeat this process until the bag is full and then you just need to remember to water them. Towards the end of the season, 10 to 20 weeks later, when the foliage starts to yellow and die back, break open your potato bag for own home grown potatoes!

Peas

Peas prefer cooler weather and are a trouble-free crop. Sow them directly into the soil from March to June and you’ll have fresh picked pees from June to August.

They will however need support for their stems, so be sure to take a break from sports betting NZ to erect some chicken wire or netting between supports at each end of the row.

Mint

Mint is such a vigorous crop that it will grow in almost any moist soil, so it’s best to keep it in a pot to prevent it spreading too far and taking over your whole garden!

Broad Beans

Plant broad beans in spring in small 7.5cm pots of compost and within a few weeks you’ll have sturdy, quick growing bean plants that can be planted out into the garden.

You’ll have a bumper crop of crunch beans from June onwards.

Runner Beans

Runner beans are climbers so allow them plenty of space and train them onto wires or a plant support frames.

Keeping them well watered will result in a near constant supply in summer and remember that regular picking is essential.

Onions and Garlic

Both onion and garlic crops are virtually maintenance free: plant onion bulbs and individual garlic cloves in well-drained soil in spring or autumn and that’s it!

When the foliage yellows and dies back in summer, you can lift them and dry them in the sun ahead of storage.

Tomatoes

These are ideal plants for kids to get started on gardening with! Tomatoes grow quickly and bush varieties can be planted in hanging baskets or window boxes.

Bush varieties require very little training or side-shooting and you’ll only have to feed and water them.

Beetroot

Beetroot is one of the easiest root vegetables to grow and they can be sown directly into moist ground from March to July.

Be sure to thin the seedlings to about 5cm apart as they grow and you can look forward to a May to September harvest.