3 Best Vegetables For Beginner Gardeners And An All Summer Harvest

Plant Tomatoes, Peppers And Squash For A Can’t Miss Garden!

Anyone can grow the 3 best vegetables for beginner gardeners because all you need is a sunny spot, good soil, and water for a harvest.

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After your first home-grown harvest, you will be ready to plant a second crop in midsummer that will give you a bounty to preserve for leaner days.

Growing your own tomatoes, peppers and squash will surprise you.

Seasoned gardeners love picking that first tomato and; when supermarket shelves become bare, they would just as soon open a jar of homemade salsa or spaghetti sauce.

As a beginner gardener, plant just one tomato, banana pepper, and squash in a small kitchen or balcony garden

Plant Tomatoes First

Nothing beats the taste of home home-grown tomatoes fresh from the garden.

Here are a few tips to get you started.

• Choose a location that receives a minimum of six to eight hours of direct sunlight. Support plants with stakes or wire cages. Be sure to anchor cages with small stakes to prevent from turning over and uprooting your plants.
• Keep in mind that there are two kinds of tomato plants: Determinate and indeterminate. Determinate types grow short and bushy and ripen all their fruit at once. These grow well in cages and are ideal for canning. Indeterminate plants are tall and vine like, needing strong stakes. They fruit over a long period.
• Buy healthy-looking, stocky plants. Avoid transplants that already have flowers or fruit.
• Make sure that soil is loose and fertile. Strip off all but the top four leaves. Plant deeply so that only the leafy tops show above the ground. Roots will soon develop all along the buried stems.
• Boost young plants with 20-20-20 liquid fertilizer or Miracle Gro Tomato Plant Food applied according to the label directions.
• Apply 2 to 3 inches of mulch around the plants to keep the soil moist and discourage weeds.
• Avoid overhead watering from sprinklers. Wet foliage promotes disease. Drip irrigation and soaker hoses are better for your plants.

Plant Peppers

Sweet peppers come in many colors, such as red, orange, yellow, green, and purple.

Choose from bell peppers, banana peppers, pimento peppers, and long Italian peppers.

Grow peppers from seeds or transplants.

Sow seeds six to eight weeks before you intend to set them in the garden.

Then plant them in well-drained soil where they will receive at least six hours of sunlight a day.

When setting out transplants, be sure to water regularly until they’re established.

Once they’re rooted, peppers are very drought tolerant.

Space plants 18 to 24 inches apart in plants to bamboo stakes.

Stakes will come in handy later as the peppers become top-heavy with fruit.

Feed monthly with a little Miracle Gro Tomato Plant Food.

Plant Summer Squash

The most popular types of summer squash are yellow, both straightneck and crookneck, pattypan, and green zuchinni.

Plant squash seeds or transplants immediately after your last frost.

For example, in planting zone 7, I can plant after the last week of April.

Click the link to find your planting zone.

Plant again several weeks later to extend the harvest.

Plant squash on low mounds spaced 3 feet apart, leaving two plants per mound.

One mound per family member is plenty.

Once plants begin flowering, they will set fruit quickly and can be ready to harvest in just a week.

Pick yellow squash while it’s still small and tender that’s 4 to 6 inches long.

Harvest zucchini when it’s a little larger that’s 6 to 8 inches long.

Pick pattypan selections when the fruit is 3 to 5 inches in diameter.

That’s it!

Image By Priya