The 10 Easiest Vegetables to Grow from Seeds

Growing your own food gratifying, healthy, and saves money. Here are the 10 easiest vegetables to grow from seeds… plus a bumper crop of tips on how to grow them successfully.

Starting food from seeds is easy, inexpensive, and fun. But planning a garden can be daunting and many gardeners do not know where to start.

“Planning a garden starts with choosing what you love to eat,” says Farmer John Fendley of the Sustainable Seed Company. “Your garden is the ultimate grocery store because it’s convenient and tailored to your taste. But there are a multitude of other benefits to gardening such as saving money, eating healthier foods and burning calories.”

The 10 Easiest Vegetables to Grow from Seeds

If you’re new to growing your own food, Farmer John suggests keeping it simple. Having an uncomplicated and successful outing your first time around means you’re more likely to keep it up. These easy to grow vegetables are some of the most predictable to add to your vegetable garden.

The 10 Easiest Vegetables to Grow from Seeds

Beets

Beets are cool weather crops that do best after the harsh winter cold and before the mid-summer heat. They can also be grown when planted in the late summer for a fall harvest. Perfect conditions for bountiful beets include soil at around 60 degrees F, plenty of water, and all the sun they can get.

Radishes

Radishes are a great choice because they grow quickly and easily in both the spring and fall. Nothing beats the fresh, crisp taste radishes add to a salad. They can be ready to eat in less than a month from the time you plant seeds.

Peas

“Nothing beats peas for growing with kids,” says Farmer John. Both shorter and taller varieties like to climb. Plant peas early in the season in well-draining soil on both sides of a trellis. By the time it gets warm, you’ll be shelling away.

Swiss Chard

Swiss chard is rich with vitamins and minerals and is a low-maintenance green.  It is more frost and heat tolerant than other greens. Sow the seeds directly into well-composted manure, add water and watch them grow.

Green Beans: The 10 Easiest Vegetables to Grow from Seeds

Beans

No childhood is complete without the experience of snapping green beans! Like peas, most beans like to grow up. They can do well when seeds are planted directly into warm soil with something to climb. Beans are for beginners because most varieties produce for weeks and weeks if they are picked. Give them full sun and plenty of water at the root.

Lettuce

Lettuce comes in so many varieties that you’re sure to find one that meets your growing and eating needs. When it’s very hot, most lettuce needs shade. Since they grow close to the ground, they’re perfect to plant in the shade cast by taller plants like tomatoes and beans.

Spinach

A nutritional powerhouse that’s easy to love, spinach grows well in cool weather. If you want a lot, you have to plant a lot. Harvest it like lettuce, either by picking the largest leaves or by cutting all the leaves back to about one inch. If you choose the latter method, spinach will grow back several times throughout the season.

Tomatoes: One of the 10 easiest vegetables to grow from seeds

Tomatoes

Start tomatoes indoors in February or March.  Once they’re in the ground in a spot with full sun, many varieties will be extremely prolific. For a strong root system, plant the starters deeply, burying the stem up to the lowest leaves as the roots need to develop a strong foundation. As the plant grows, water regularly and expose it to plenty of sunshine. Trim and remove weak leaves and fruit as it grows to allow for ripened fruit and leaves to flourish.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are flexible in their growing environments and can grow in containers, raised beds, rows, or hills. As long as there is warm weather, ample sunshine (6-8 hours per day), and lots of water, a cucumber will grow. One plant grows an abundance of cucumbers since they grow as bushes. Be sure to space the plants over two and a half feet apart if growing several plants in a row.

Basil

Farmer John thinks herbs are some of the easiest plants to grow from seed, but the most versatile is basil. It can be grown both indoors and out. Ensure that it gets plenty of light, at least 6 hours, natural or artificial, per day. Basil thrives in properly drained, nutrient packed soil and needs thinning maintenance at the early stages to ensure strong plant growth.

The selection available online for unique and delicious heirloom vegetables far surpasses anything found in supermarkets.  And when you begin to harvest and enjoy nature’s bounty, you’ll be well pleased at the money you save, and the amazing food you grew from seed. So check out the estimated last spring frost in your area, and start your seeds…you’ll be very happy you did.

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8 Comments

  1. Mike the Gardener says:

    Awesome list! And very true … all that are listed are very easy to grow from seeds.

  2. Jen Scherr says:

    Zucchini!! Why isn’t zucchini on the list?? they come up in days, produce like nothing else out there and it seems the desert heat doesn’t even kill them 🙂

  3. Mary Richter says:

    I live on the coast of SC and I allow my basil to go to seed in my garden. Every year I have so much basil I have to give it away.

    1. Mike the Gardener says:

      I was thinking the same thing about zucchini

  4. Julia @ Save BIg Live Better! says:

    Just shared a link to this article with our readers! Thanks so much for the great tips, I’ll be needing this being that I’m a little “green thumb challenged” myself! LOL:)

  5. Thanks for the info. I’ve been gardening most of my life, and never knew about cutting the lettuce & spinach back for a regrowth. Truth is, I’ve only planted them a few times. We grow most everything from seed, and have a great local market that provides all heirloom seeds. Beware of the packet seeds. They don’t do well, and I don’t trust big business much. The heirlooms are much more bug & disease resistant, in my experience.

  6. They are all in my line up this year! sweet!

  7. Gluten Putin says:

    So much great info!