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Don’t have a green thumb? Neither do I. When I moved to the suburbs, my landlord told me she had a vegetable garden in the backyard and hoped it was okay that she tended to it still during the summer even though it’s on my property. I was delighted! I told her I would even help, but I knew nothing about gardening. Early spring, we went to a local farm to pick out our goodies. She has grown tomatoes before, but we decided to try some vegetables that were new to us and try our luck. We planted: tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, green peppers, strawberries, basil, chives, thyme, mint and rosemary.
My first tip for beginner gardeners is that it takes a while to get things going! The tomato plants we put in were so small when we bought them, but now they are really shooting up and we had to keep them upright with stakes. Finally we are seeing little green bulbs. The zucchini and eggplant came up the quickest. I had no idea that a zucchini plant would turn into a huge plant! When we planted it, it was small enough to fit in a little pot, and here it is today:
We have already eaten one zucchini in addition to the five that are growing! That being said, I would nominate zucchini as the #1 easiest vegetable to grow for beginners. We planted it in a spot that was newly ploughed where nothing had been planted before. With enough sun (the garden gets at least 7-8 hours a day) and daily water (rain or by hand) we were eating these in about two months. I also will add tomatoes to the easiest vegetables list because the only maintenance they require is tying them up to a stake, which can be mastered in a YouTube tutorial. #3 on the easiest list, even though not a vegetable, has to be herbs. They only need water and sun, just make sure you pick them from the top so they keep growing!
Notice I did not mention green peppers, eggplant, or strawberries as easy. I think the eggplant will turn out to be easy, since we already do have two ready to be picked, but it’s taking awhile for them to come up. Since we (definitely I) are relatively inexperienced gardeners and didn’t know how big the zucchini and eggplant plants would get, the green pepper plant got stuck underneath the huge leaves of the other two and the poor little guy wasn’t able to get any sun. He has since been moved to a more open part of the garden, but I’m not sure if he will recover this season. Lastly, the strawberries. I was most excited for these! We bought them without doing research and realized that the first year they are planted, they basically just establish their roots and produce very little in terms of berries. We did get some early on, but the squirrels seemed to enjoy them more than we did since we never got to see them! Just their remains. They flowered and a couple more have sprouted, but we are expecting a much better return next year.
There is my list of best and not-best first time gardener plants to plant! I will reflect this year on what we can do differently next year as I eat my zucchini noodles, zucchini bread, zucchini boats and roasted eggplant.
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