Top 5 Vegies to Grow at Home
Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 05:59PM If you could only grow five veggies at home, what would they be? Goodness that is a tough question for us! We grow 35 different veggies - artichoke, broad beans, bokchoy, green beans, Brussels sprouts, beetroot, broccoli, carrot, cabbage, capsicum, cauliflower, celery, corn, cucumber, eggplant, fennel, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, parsley, parsnip, potato, pumpkin, snow peas, spinach, silverbeet, spring onion, rocket, squash, spaghetti squash, sweet potato, tomatoes and zucchini. Phew! So who would be in our top five and why? Drum roll please...
1) Cherry Tomatoes - They grow like weeds and fruit for us pretty much all year round. We’re still picking them fresh from the vine, and have young seedlings in now for early spring harvest! Unlike other tomatoes, they’re so hardy and very resistant to pests. We use them so much in the kitchen - in salads, soups and pastas, on wraps and pizzas. We’d be lost without them!
2) Zucchini – Again they grow like nothing else, and as such as have become used to having them in almost every dish over the summer! Zucchini are a new gardener’s best friend, giving instant reward for little effort. We like zucchini best in stir-fries, and grated raw onto salad wraps.
3) Potatoes – Home grown potatoes are just delicious and taste so much better than store brought varieties. Slow cooked home grown potato wedges covered in spices and olive oil are just to die for. With bumper crops, there’s not much more satisfying than digging up a potato patch...
4) Corn – Juicy, sweet and oh so tender, fresh corn straight from the cob doesn’t even need to be cooked! But lightly steamed and with some melted butter – divine! A patch of corn in the garden is such an impressive site to behold. If you have any member of the grass family on your block, let it be this!
5) Onions – We probably eat more onions than any other vegetable – they’re the base of almost every meal! Onions are impossible for us to buy organically around here, so growing our own is the perfect solution. Easy to grow and good at being stored for long periods, onions for us are a must, and we’ve just planted a whole bunch for harvesting in the summer.
What would be your top five veggies to grow and why?
Reader Comments (12)
Wonderful! Great list... I would also add, button squash. They grow SO easily and had an abundance of yellow ones... good in stir fry, casseroles, steamed, stuffed, any way zuchini can, & our favourite was sliced & BBQ'd! They can be expensive in the shops too.
Many things I have tried to grow have been very disappointing, therefore my top five would have to be the things that have given me the most success.
1) Zucchini/button squash
2) Butternut pumpkin
3) Onions & garlic
4) Beans (Lazy Housewife and Purple King)
5) Broccoli
At the other end of the scale, I think I'll give up on potatoes. I'd get a more substantial feed from eating the seed potatoes than from eating the crop I've gained from the seed potatoes.
Most brassicas have failed, the only success I've had being broccoli which narrowly pushed corn from my top 5 because last year corn didn't do very well..
I also have no success with peas of various types. We get a few, but not really enough to make it worthwhile growing them.
Tomatoes have been very hit and miss (more the latter). The best crop I had fell prey to fruit fly. Last year the bugs weren't a problem - but there was little fruit to attract them anyway.
This year I am trying Tuscan Kale for the first time which I hope will grow well.
We would like to make our block much more productive but results over the last two or three years have not been encouraging.
I'd add purple climbing beans to the list, for sure. They're super easy to grow, don't need much looking after, and the kids love them. A continuous-picking lettuce would be on my list, too.
I did a really similar post a about a week ago ( http://cluttercut.blogspot.com/2010/06/5-best-potted-fruits-and-vegetables.html ) and my list also included cherry toms.
Apart from that, I chose lettuce, strawberries, turnips and blueberries. My post was discussing potted veggies and fruits, which makes a difference, and also we're in a cool temperate climate, but it's interesting how tommies always come out on top! :-)
Thanks for sharing what you would have in your top five Dixibelle, Darren, Tim and Daharja! What a co-incidence you recently did a 'top five' post as well Daharja - you're blueberries look fantastic! Those purple climbing beans sounds good Darren, we'll have to give them a try.
Tim, it's an art for all of us to find out what grows well and what doesn't in our specific climate and location and it sounds like you're really getting to know what works and what doesn't for you. Good luck with the Tuscan kale!
oh great! Funny you said about the tomatoes as we have them still ripening now and it did not get higher than about 5 degrees here today! I must collect some seed!
Oh and I forgot to say. In the end we dried most of our persimmon - it is amazing and even better than dry mango! Have you tried? Once i did one load the family would not let me even consider doing anything eelse with them!
Like Tim, I have to rank mine according to their success (in a small, often shaded Sydney courtyard)
1) Lebanese cucumber
2) parsley
3) pak choi
4) fiesty lettuces (ie mizuna & radiccio)
5) chillies
1. SILVERBEET! And all it's many varieties: so much bang for the new-gardener buck. Grows fast, ready for baby-leaf picking within a month or so, then lives for two years supplying a constant harvest of greens to throw in with your dinner. And if you get the pretty multicoloured kinds it looks awesome in the garden.
2. Zucchini & all the summer-squash varieties. Nothing like the reward of overabundance, for a new gardener.
3. Pole beans. They grow so fast, are so fun to watch.
4. Kale. I like my greens, can you tell? But actually I've had the best results with Red Russian kale in the Sydney area, and always recommend this for new gardeners. It really seems to like the Sydney climate. Plus, it's pretty.
5. Chillies. I bought a six-pack of mixed chilli varieties from the hardware store three years ago & planted them into a garden that I have since left behind, and which nobody looks after, and still: they are producing & producing, better every year. Amazing.
Fantastic to hear your family enjoyed the dried persimmon so much Umatji. We dried some persimmon last year and they were really yum. This year we decided to freeze a lot of them, and we're STILL eating persimmon every day in our fruit smoothies! Glad to hear your cherry tomatoes are still hanging in there - good idea to save the seed!
'Msbetterhome' thanks so much for sharing your top five for growing in an often shady courtyard. It's really interesting to hear what works best in that situation, and we often have people ask what works well in small or shady places, so will be sure to pass on your recommendations!
We totally agree with you 'glittertrash' - Silverbeet, chillis and kale sure are winners in the garden! As you mention, they add so much colour and are so rewarding, especially for new gardeners. Thanks for sharing your top five, and we hope your garden is going well through these chilly months!
For me my must haves are:
*Green climbling beans, which i plant beans along to free up garden bed space
*lettuce (iceberg)
*tomatoes (cherry are unstoppable)
*pumpkin (also not in garden bed)
*cucumber (along fence line)
With these in my garden, when i dont make it to the markets, I can still always make a salad, and always have veg to steam/roast.
Even moving quite frequently and not always having much of a garden bed I am always able to grow these things. Property perimeter gets dug up, fertilzed and seeds/seedlings planted. I have grown icebergs in styrofoam boxes, lettuce mix in lined bread crates when without a garden and a short lease.