10 Easy to Grow Vegetable Seeds and Plants for Beginners

Do you dream of harvesting your own home grown vegetables, but just don’t know where to start? Wondering which vegetables are easy to grow? From pots to plots, there are vegetables to suit gardens of every size. ‘Growing your own’ isn’t complicated. Read our quick overview of our top 10 easy to grow vegetables, and start sowing today.

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1. Salad Leaves

Crunchy fresh leaves with a fantastic range of textures and flavours. Try sowing our easy Salad ‘Speedy Mix’ throughout the summer months, and you’ll be cutting fresh leaves for your sandwiches just 3 weeks later! Better still, they will continue growing so you can harvest them again and again. See our full range of salad leaves here.

2. Spring onions and Radishes

Ok, so we cheated by listing these together but they are both so easy and quick growing that we couldn’t resist! Spice up your salads with spring onionsand peppery radish. Spring onions and radishes make easy vegetables to grow in pots, or sow them directly into the ground throughout the summer for a succession of crunchy, colourful crops.

3. Potatoes

A really fun crop to grow! Plant potatoes during late February and March inpotato bags that are only part filled with compost. When the green shoots begin to appear above the soil, simply cover them with more compost. Repeat this until the bag is full, and then you only need remember to water them! The fun comes at the end of the season, 10 to 20 weeks later, when the foliage starts to yellow and die back. Tip the bag out and rummage around in the soil to collect up your own home grown potatoes. Potatoes are such easy vegetables to grow at home!

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4. Peas

Peas are a trouble free crop that enjoy cooler weather. Sow them directly into the ground from March to June and look forward to the incredible sweet flavour of fresh picked peas from June to August. All they require is support for their stems – simply erect some chicken wire or netting between supports at each end of the row. You’ll be amazed at how good fresh peas taste and the more that you pick them, the more they produce!

5. Mint

Well if you’re growing potatoes and peas then you might as well grow the garnish as well! Mint is so vigorous that it will grow on almost any moist soil so it’s best to keep it in a pot to stop it spreading too far. Use it fresh picked from the plant or you can freeze it in ice cubes to use later on.

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6. Broad Beans

What could be simpler! Sow Broad Beans in spring in small 7.5cm (3″) pots of compost, and within a few weeks these quick growing beans will make sturdy plants that can be planted out in the garden. If that sounds like too much work then sow them directly in the ground. Watch the bees pollinate their pretty flowers and before you know it you will be harvesting a bumper crop of fresh picked beans from June onwards, with a flavour that puts supermarket beans to shame.

7. Runner Beans

Almost as simple as broad beans and you can sow them in the same way.Runner beans are climbers so give them plenty of space and train them onto wires or a plant support frame. Keep them well watered and they will reward you with a constant supply in summer. Regular picking is essential – but that won’t be a problem when they taste so good! If you are short on space, why not try dwarf runner bean ‘Hestia’.

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8. Onions and Garlic

These crops are virtually maintenance free and really are such easy vegetables to grow! Simply plant onion bulbs and individual garlic cloves on well drained soil in spring or autumn – then leave them to it! In late summer when the foliage yellows and dies back, you can lift them and dry them in the sun before storing them. What could be easier?

9. Tomatoes

Tomato plants are so quick that you can almost watch them grow so they are the ideal easy vegetable for kids to grow. Choose a bush variety like ‘Cherry Cascade’ that can be planted in hanging baskets and window boxes. Bush varieties don’t require training or side-shooting so you only need to feed and water them. If you don’t feel confident enough to grow them from seed then order tomato plug plants.

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10. Beetroot

For an easy to grow root vegetable try beetroot. Often used in salads but equally tasty eaten warm and freshly boiled as a vegetable. Beetroot can be sown directly into moist ground from March to July. As they grow, thin the seedlings to about 5cm apart. From May to September you can look forward to harvesting your own colourful, succulent beetroot.