If you are starting a vegetable garden for the first time, it is smart to begin with easy vegetables. But when you search for those, you do not always get the right answer. Today I will give you one that does make sense.
What are the easiest vegetables to start with?
Jumping in at the deep end
Every year, new MM gardeners join in. Some have had a vegetable garden before, but most are working with plants for the first time.
That last group often starts straight away with the trickiest vegetables. No practising with the easiest varieties first, just straight in at the deep end.
I even see photos of sweet peppers and aubergines on the windowsill, while I still do not dare try those myself.
That surprised me, so I did some digging. I asked the internet this question:
'What are the 10 easiest vegetables to sow yourself?'
And what do you think? Tomatoes, sweet peppers, leeks, and chillies came up suspiciously often, and sometimes aubergine too. You would almost think all those sites copy each other's lists.
So I thought it was time to make my own list. One that is actually right.
9 of the 10 easiest vegetables to sow yourself
My top 10 easiest vegetables
Radishes
Salanova lettuce
Arugola
Leaf lettuce, meaning any lettuce you harvest by picking leaves
Chard
Spinach
Peas, such as snow peas, sugar snaps and winter peas
Endive
Winter purslane
Dino kale
Why these, and not all the other seeds in the app? I explain it in this post.
Tomatoes are a little less easy, but they are still great fun to sow yourself.
Two weeks ago I sowed cherry tomato, bush tomato, and yellow snack tomato seeds, and after about 5 days they came up.
They are on a sunny windowsill, in airpots on MM coconut seed-starting mix. Because we turn them a quarter turn every day, they stay nicely straight and sturdy.
Pre-sown tomato plants on the windowsill
That is a relief, because this is the first time we have had the coconut seed-starting mix. We knew it would work well, but it was still a little exciting.
What I also like is that when the pots are in full sun and the mix dries out a little, you can simply pour some water into the tray. The coconut fibre absorbs it very quickly, which the classic seed-starting mix does not do.
With the coconut mix, though, you do need to add plant food first. Apart from that, they work the same way.
In the coming week I will sow a few extra tomatoes, including the balcony tomato. According to the app, you can do that until 15 April, though I sometimes do it a little later myself.
Have you not started yet and would you like to know how I do it? I explain it step by step here:
Enjoy your plants, and do not make things too hard for yourself. Especially if you are just starting out. Really: the easiest vegetables are already great fun.
And tasty too:
See you next time!
PS:
The strawberry plants sold much faster than expected and are already completely sold out. Unfortunately, we cannot order any more either. Sorry if you were just too late.
