Plan your first garden with these 10 easy crops that offer great cooking possibilities.

Discover the pleasures of gardening by taking on crops that can grow easily in your first garden. If you’re a beginner, consider starting with the 10 crops discussed below. All are easy to grow, and this combination offers lots of possibilities for cooking. Some of these crops are best grown by setting out started seedlings, but most are easy to grow from a packet of seeds.

Tomatoes

Possibly the most popular vegetable for any size garden, you can grow tomatoes in hanging baskets or other containers or anywhere they’ll get lots of sun and have support for their stalks.

Zucchini squash

Like beans and cucumbers, zucchini plants are prolific, whether they are grown in containers or directly in mounded soil. Like beans and radishes, they grow easily from seeds. They need good moisture, though, and prefer warm soil, so it’s best to sow seeds later in the warm season (a good plant for gardening procrastinators!).

Peppers

Peppers are another heat loving plant. If you’re just starting out then I would suggest buying starts at your local nursery and planting in the ground after all danger of frost has past and night temps reach 55 degrees.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are another really easy crop to grow. They’re pretty prolific so unless you plan on canning or preserving them 3-4 plants should be plenty for fresh eating. They are a vine as well so you will need to trellis them.

Lettuce

Pick your favorite, or try a mix — many companies sell mixed packets for summer and winter gardening. Plant the seeds in spring and fall, and you can pick salads almost year-round.

Spring Onions

Easy-to-grow vegetables that are ready to harvest in just eight weeks make spring onions a firm favourite. Perfect for use as a “filler crop” between rows of slower growing vegetables, this tasty salad and stir-fry staple can be eaten raw or cooked. Here’s how to grow spring onions from seed.

Carrots

they’re simple and fun to grow (your kids might even want to help). They tolerate light shade too, although, like most plants prefer full sun.

Swiss Chard

Chard are great, easy-to-grow sources of cooking and salad greens. You can direct sow them in the ground in the spring, or start transplants 4 weeks before planting out about 2 weeks before your last frost date.

Radishes (if you like them)

Radishes do well even in not-so-great garden soil and are ready to harvest in only a few weeks.