Easiest Crops?

[digitS']

I did a little thinking about this (worked hard to come up with an easiest answer ). What are the easiest things I grow? As we here on TEG begin thinking about next year's garden, maybe it makes sense to suggest a few.

First off, cosmos are an easy addition to the flower garden . They grow from seed or self-sow and transplant easily when they are young.

I don't feel that the lilies in my front yard require much to show up each year and make a show . They are sometimes burned by a late frost, tho'. I also need to travel around and pull the stamens out of the flowers when they open. Otherwise, they make kind of a mess out of themselves and aren't pretty for very long.

I have to think about bug threats with some things. So, can't really vote for one that I have to spray to keep the bugs off. Many of my annual vegetables I have to use an organic pesticide on at least some years, some seasons. What must be the easiest for me to grow without doing that - green beans - are loved by the rabbits! I suppose that despite Bugs and bugs showing up in my garden, carrots are one thing that I never spray. However, rocks make for terrible crookedness and, I think, they are often attacked by those microscopic root nematodes!

I suppose I could vote for onions - which I don't spray. Still, it would only be the sets that are almost impossibly easy. Growing from seed, transplanting tiny seedlings, weeding, and thinning means quite a bit of work.

Sweet corn? I almost can't remember the last time I had so much of a cornworm problem that I had to do anything about them. The aphids, I just shrug off. Using an organic fertilizer, I only need to get it out there for side dressing once. Because of its height, corn is a little difficult to water and then a wind storm can blow it down but that doen't usually happen. So, here is a vote for corn in my annual veggie garden .

No vote for the mints -- even tho' I have a number in the yard. They are a bit invasive and I don't really care to make any use of them . . . sorry, not really a mint person.

Lesa and others won't agree on this - we've discussed it before - but, how about those perennial chives !? The chives grow in absolutely the shadiest part of my yard! They really only have sun during the early morning hours of the summer. During a bad snow winter, the snow will slide off my carport and bury them for months.

It takes forever for the ground to thaw around them early in the new season. Still, they are a very early onion crop for me! I very much like them in omelets & scrambled eggs. I use a harvest-to-the-ground technique.They can also be cut back about the time they flower and be ready for use in sour cream with the potatoes when those are ready for harvest.

The chives do everything I could hope for in their difficult location. Lesa will attest to their tendency to spread. In my garden, they don't really sneak in amongst other plants so, I can't think of them as being invasive. I've never found them in the lawn grass but you might want to ask around in your community to find out if that is a problem where you garden.

Annual veggies, perennial veggies, annual flowers, perennial flowers . . . would you like to cast some votes??

Steve

 

[NwMtGardener]

I really think it would be a toss up between my sugar snap peas and iris. I definitely think chives are super simple too, but i like peas better. One vote for peas!

 

[thistlebloom]

Another pea vote here! I suppose whats easy for any of us could be not so easy for others, depending on locale and gardening habits.
But for me, just taking what I grew last season as a water mark, corn is on the easy list, and beans and carrots. Potatoes are also, though that hasn't been the case in a few prior years.

Or, wait, maybe I'm confusing easy with successful....?

Jerusalem artichoke is super easy, plant once and ignore basically.

In the landscape my rugosas are about as easy as it's possible to be, but I won't make a list of everything in the yard that's easy to grow or we'd die of boredom. I do have to add the clematis to that landscape list though. But I love them so much that even if they weren't easy I'd hardly notice it.

Now on the Completely- Frustrating-Somebody-Just-Shoot-Me list I must put tomatoes. Oh, they grow great, and bloom their little heads off, and set fruit like it's going out of style....it would just be nice to actually eat a ripe one before October .

 

[digitS']

I would be inclined to choose Jerusalem artichoke, I think . . . if'n I had any . . . Iris and quack grass go together. I really need to move them every July - worst possible time. Then, would they bloom the year following?

Peas? Until last year, I might have voted for them. Atho' they have been mobbed by aphids some years and got some kind of botrytis or something, other times. Mildew kills them in the end. A huge problem with peas is that bunnies like peas as well as they like the beans.

And, then last year. Something went terribly wrong with the peas right after they emerged. Maybe it was slugs but the damage looked like grasshoppers - at a time when there were no grasshoppers. They never recovered well enuf to leave them . . . I replaced those peas with tomatoes.

Steve

 

[gardentoad]

I would have to vote for carrots, unless I am doing something wrong, I put them in the ground as seed and they come up... The hardest part for me is turning on the watering hose



Don

 

[OldGuy43]

Extreme drought here. The only thing I had any luck with at all this year was Kale.

 

[ninnymary]

This year it was the "rosa Bianca" eggplant and my jalapenos. Didn't do a thing to them other than water. Last year I couldn't grow them. Try to figure that one out. :/

Mary

 

[digitS']

Kale usually does just fine for me. I'm a little surprised that this, supposed, cool-season crop went thru a Texas drought okay!

Kale can have cabbage worm problems but that really doesn't happen much in my garden. I think the birds, maybe especially the song sparrows, help me out there. Aphids, on the other hand try to suck the life out of kale some years!

There are gardeners who will not grow curly kale because of the aphids hiding out in the crinkles. I find aphids easy to kill with insecticidal soap so if there's one veggie that I usually have to spray but would still consider it an easy crop, it's kale. My pesticide prejudices are coming thru here. And yes, it gets thru a hot dry summer just fine and I eat it continuously thru the summer months.

Eggplants!?! I have had so much trouble with bugs on the eggplant some years! And, they do not like the cold. Lovely plants and lovely casseroles . . .

Peppers consistently surprise me with their reasonable success in my garden! They don't like the cold either and it stunts them a bit, nearly every spring. However, they are able to rally and produce a crop. I'm always holding my breath for the peppers and relieved when they come thru. I just wish they wouldn't scare me so bad each year!

Steve

 

[RustyDHart]

Hi Steve......I grow Calendulas every year.....lots will come up volunteer, but I always like to plant a long row of them in the flower garden with the Dahlias.....they germinate quick....they grow fast and produce lots of beautiful, EDIBLE flowers. They can also be used for cutting. Four O'Clocks are easy and quick to grow as well.....not a cut flower...but pretty just the same. My "Madame Butterfly" Snapdragons (double blooms) are very hardy and a quick grower too......hope this helps? Rusty Calendula.....

 

[Mattemma]

Ground cherries,tomatillos,lettuce,and cucumbers.Oh and zukes! Zukes grow so fast and need no care.