6 Easiest Vegetables to Grow for Beginners Step by Step from Seed to Harvest | Gardening for Beginn

In this video, I'll show you six vegetables that are super easy to grow at home. Perfect for beginners. First up, peas. They're simple to grow, have very few pests, and are one of my favourite fresh garden snacks. Honestly, they rarely make it into the kitchen. I usually eat them fresh right off the vine. Cooked or raw, they're nothing like the canned or frozen peas I grew up with. If that's all you've ever tried, growing your own will be a game changer. The best way to start peas is by sowing the seeds directly in full sun, spacing them one to two inches apart. They're cold tolerant, so you can sow them outdoors about six weeks before your last frost date. In milder climates, fall planting works too, and they'll grow through spring. Since peas are a vining crop, they need support to climb. I've had great luck using bamboo teepees and cattle panels as trellises. For snap peas, you can start harvesting once the pods begin to swell. These are best when eaten whole. For shelling peas, wait until the pods look nice and full. Potatoes are one of the most fun crops to grow. You never know what you'll dig up at the end of the season. It's like a treasure hunt. And the flavour of a freshly harvested potato is something you have to experience to believe. You really have to try it. Chitting your potatoes before planting gives them a head start, especially in colder climates. It also helps you see which ones are viable before planting. Start chitting about four to six weeks before your last frost date by placing seed potatoes in a bright, warm spot. An egg carton works great for this. Once they sprout about half an inch tall, they're ready to plant. Whether you chit them or not, you can plant potatoes around two weeks before your last frost. And there's an easier method than digging deep holes. Just lay your potatoes on top of the soil about a foot apart and cover them with a thick layer of straw. Keep them well watered and add more straw if the potatoes peek through. When the flowers fade and the plants start yellowing, it's almost harvest time. That's when you remove the straw and see what kind of harvest you've got. Freshly dug potatoes have thin, delicate skins. Rinse them gently, but don't scrub. Store in a cool, dark place for seven, ten days to cure. Now, let's move on to lettuce, a great starter plant. Lettuce is a fantastic starter plant, especially leaf lettuce. If you've never gardened before, it's the perfect crop. It germinates fast, grows quickly, and you can begin harvesting in under a month. There are two main types, leaf lettuce and head lettuce. Head lettuce takes more time and space, while leaf lettuce grows quickly and can be tucked just about anywhere. It prefers moist, rich soil, but will grow in most conditions, even with some shade. Lettuce is a cool season crop and germinates easily as long as temperatures stay below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, 27 degrees Celsius. The seeds are tiny and it's easy to sow them too densely. You'll need to thin them, four to six inches apart for leaf lettuce and around 12 inches for head lettuce. You can eat the thinnings if you don't want to waste them. Here's a handy trick. Take an old spice shaker, add a couple tablespoons of sand and a packet of lettuce seeds, then shake it up. Sprinkle it over the soil. The sand helps space the seeds evenly. Most lettuce seeds are surface sown, though some need a thin soil covering. Keep the soil evenly moist until germination. As the plants grow, a liquid organic feed every two weeks helps build robust leaves. For head lettuce, check the heads to make sure they're the right size. Before harvesting, they should feel firm and full before cutting them from the stem. Leaf lettuce, on the other hand, can be harvested as a cut-and-come-again crop. Just pick the outer leaves and let the centre keep growing. Onions have been cultivated for over 5,000 years and it's easy to understand why. Most of my favourite recipes include onions. Growing and cooking with my own is incredibly satisfying, maybe because they're so flavourful and versatile. They bring so much flavour to so many dishes. Onion varieties need specific amounts of daily sunlight over a set number of days. In the US, it breaks down like this. In the north, grow long-day onions. In the central US, grow intermediate-day onions. And in the south, go for short-day onions. If you plant the wrong type for your region, you'll get green tops but no bulb. In mild southern climates, we can sow short-day onions in mid-November, or try again in February with intermediate-day varieties. If you're in a colder climate, start seeds indoors 8 to 10 weeks before your last frost. You can sow a whole packet of seeds densely and they'll grow like a thick mat of green. Let them grow for about 4 weeks. Then, 4 weeks before your last frost, separate and transplant them into the garden, spacing them about 6 inches apart. Onions are fairly easy to grow, just make sure they get enough sun and water. To help them develop big bulbs, feed with a balanced organic liquid fertiliser every 2 weeks. You'll know they're ready to harvest when about half the stems bend over at the neck just above the bulb. Then gently bend the rest over. This tells the plant to start going dormant. When it's time to harvest, dig the bulbs from below rather than pulling them by the stems. Brush off any loose soil. Lay the bulbs in the sun in a single layer for 3 days. Then move them inside or into the shade for another 3-4 weeks until the leaves are dry and brittle. After that, store them in a cool, dry place. I don't know about you, but I can't get enough garlic. I usually double the amount in recipes. Growing garlic is easier than you might think and you can get a great harvest from a small space. It's planted in the fall, and ideally, about 6 weeks before the ground freezes. In warmer areas where the ground doesn't freeze, you can plant garlic through November or December. Since they're bulbs, they love phosphorus. Add some organic phosphorus like bone meal to the planting holes. Choose the biggest, healthiest cloves. They'll grow into the largest garlic bulbs. Garlic loves full sun and rich, well-draining soil. Plant each clove pointy end up, about 4 inches deep and 6 inches apart. It's almost a plant-it-and-forget-it crop. They need occasional feeding, but otherwise are low maintenance. As long as the soil stays moist and was prepped well, they grow well on their own. It takes 8 to 9 months to harvest. You'll know it's close when the lower leaves start turning brown and drying out. Dig next to a few plants and check the bulbs. If they look full-size, go ahead and harvest. You can eat garlic fresh, but if you grew a lot, it's time to prepare it for storage. To make garlic last, gently brush off the dirt, keeping the stalk and roots intact. Lay them in a single layer to dry, or tie 8 to 10 together and hang them bulb-side down in a cool, dark spot for about 3 weeks. After 3 to 4 weeks, once the stalks and roots are dry and crispy, trim them off and store the garlic in a cool, dark place. One of my earliest gardening memories is picking carrots in my grandparents' garden. Root vegetables are fun for kids and adults alike. To harvest. You never quite know what you'll pull up. In mild winters, you can sow carrot seeds in fall. In colder climates, sow them outdoors 3 to 5 weeks before your last frost. Carrots don't transplant well, so sow them directly outdoors in full sun. They like moist, loose soil without much nitrogen. Too much and they'll fork or twist. Carrots are tricky to germinate. They take a while and don't like being covered with soil. The key is keeping the seeds moist at all times. The best trick is to cover them with vermiculite or wood shavings. They let light in, but keep moisture in too. Keep watering regularly and they'll grow well. Be sure to thin your carrot seedlings to leave 1-2 inches between each one. Snip the extras at ground level. The best way to check if a carrot is ready is to brush the soil away from the top of the root and see if it's the right diameter. If so, it's ready. I didn't include tomatoes in this list, even though they're pretty easy to grow, because they take a bit more care to grow well. If you're curious, I'll show it in my next video. Thanks for watching and please subscribe.