09
Jun
Growing a vegetable garden can not only be economical but fun, too. However, sometimes it’s hard to decide what you want to grow and what to pass on. Here, A to Z, are growing tips and recommendations for the most popular vegetables to grow in a home vegetable garden.
Asparagus
Asparagus is one of the first vegetables of spring and it’s a perennial too. As with any perennial plant, it takes about three years to get your asparagus plants to come into their own. You’ll have to be patient and not pick any for the first year. But once they’re up and running, you’ll be enjoying fresh asparagus for years.
Beans
Beans just keep on producing. You can plant bush beans in succession every two to three weeks and have a continual harvest or just put up a couple of tepees of space-saving pole beans. And there’s so much more variety than what you can find at the grocers.
Beets
How many vegetables are entirely edible? You can eat the beet greens or wait and eat the root bulb. You can even eat the extra plants you thin out of the row. All this and beets are a very attractive ornamental plant, too.
Broccoli
Broccoli can handle a little chill in the spring, although it won’t get going until things warm up. Still, it’s nice to have the plants nestled in and ready to sprint. Give them plenty of room and good soil. They’ll be sending out sprouts for most of the summer.
Brussels Sprouts
Brussels sprouts take their time growing and then, just when you think there’s nothing left to pick in the garden, your Brussels sprouts are tinged in frost and ready to enjoy. You can start harvesting the lower sprouts earlier, but they are sweetest after being kissed by frost.
Cabbage
This plant is as decorative as it is tasty. A field of cabbages looks too good to cut. But do. Try some of the less familiar types, such as the puckered savoy, the self-blanching Chinese ‘Michihli,’ or the Italian heirloom ‘Nero di Toscana’ (black palm tree).
Corn
Corn so fresh that it doesn’t need to be cooked. If you haven’t experienced that, you owe it to yourself to try growing corn. Corn is pollinated by the wind, so you need enough space to plant it in blocks. But it’s quite an attractive plant, so you won’t mind making room.
Cucumber
Cucumbers don’t need a lot of encouragement to grow. The only hard part of growing cucumbers is keeping up with the harvest. Pick them young and they’ll be less bitter and have fewer seeds. More will follow.