Easy Kitchen Garden for Small Spaces and Distracted Gardeners

Twelve years ago as a new gardener, I completely overwhelmed myself wanting to grow everything.

Then for 9 years as a professional farmer gal, I got to work with countless varieties of veggies, flowers, herbs and even microgreens.

Now running a business and having a family means I've had to seriously narrow in on what I choose to grow in my own kitchen garden.

I thought this would be a great opportunity to share with you what I've found gives me the most success with the least effort.

My Guiding Criteria

Easy to eat

I love having tomatoes, cucumbers and green beans, for example, because I can snack on them any time I walk by, and they are also easy to prepare as part of a meal.

Easy to Grow

Veggies that don’t have excessive pest pressure or nutrition needs. (looking at you broccoli and cabbage… :/ )

Bang-for-the-buck

I want the most cost-saving vegetables for my time, space and effort. Cherry tomatoes and herbs are great examples of this.

Best When Fresh

All food loses quality over time, but some veggies decline faster than others. You cannot buy the taste of a fresh-picked green bean anywhere. I have only experienced that flavor picking them myself and crunching right away.

Long-haul Producers

One-and-done veggies, like carrots, need to be planted every few weeks if you want a continuous supply of them. That adds another layer of planning and physical effort that you may not want to deal with. For simplicity, I've choosen to grow varieties that I can plant once and harvest from over a long period.

Variety

A garden of cherry tomatoes, beans and kale might be the most efficient, but my goal for my kitchen garden is to balance keeping my inputs low and giving myself as many daily options for fresh veg as possible.

Fresh Herbs: Basil, Parsley and Dill

These herbs all make great garnishes, so all you have to do is chop up a few leaves and sprinkle them on. They’re also commonly used, so the chances of coming across a recipe that calls for one of them are pretty high. They’re easy to grow in a home garden compared to most other commonly used herbs, like cilantro (notoriously difficult). With very little effort, you can harvest off of these herbs all season.

Imagine buying one bunch each of parsley, basil and dill every week just so you could add a bit here and there as needed. It would add up quickly. The value of growing them is in having access to all 3 of them any time you want. Having 3 different fresh herb flavors to play with can add variety to all of your other veggies as well. One of my favorite summer snacks is a cucumber and tomato salad with salt & pepper, oil & vinegar and a fresh herb. I can change it up each time with a different herb for a different flavor.

Indeterminate Tomatoes

I don’t think I need to convince anyone that tomatoes are easy to eat. They are arguably the single most versatile garden veggie, plus any tomatoes I don’t manage to use fresh within the week, I throw in the freezer whole for winter canning and sauce making. EASY.

Tomatoes grow like weeds. I also choose varieties with smaller fruit, because they tend to be easier to grow. Because tomato plants have leaves that are toxic to mammals, they aren’t be targeted by critters. You do have to keep an eye out for Tomato Hornworms and Colorado Potato Beetle, but both of these insects are easy to manually pick off.

A small package of cherry tomatoes can run you $5 or more. That same package is easy to fill when cherry tomatoes come into season.

Even local farms need to harvest tomatoes slightly under-ripe so they have time to get them to the market and into your hands before they go bad. When you grow tomatoes for yourself, you can let the tomatoes completely ripen on the vine, and you get all of the richness in flavor that goes along with that.

Indeterminate tomatoes will produce all season until a frost kills them. Growing them vertically in a sunny location will greatly reduce the chance they are killed by early blight. Mine always last until the frost by growing this way, plus growing vertically is a great space-saver.

Pole Beans

As long as you keep picking, pole beans will keep producing until a frost, unlike bush beans, which will produce a couple harvests of beans and then kick the bucket.

Bean seeds are large, and therefore easy to plant directly where you want them in the garden. Not only are their nutrient needs low, they actually add nitrogen back into the soil via microbial magic. Beans are relatively cheap to buy, but when you factor in freshness (see below) and their nitrogen fixing capabilities, they're worth their weight in gold.

Fresh green beans are SO GOOD, but you might not even know what they truly taste like if you've never eaten one from your own garden. Beans lose their quality fast, faster than almost any other vegetable. When eaten fresh, beans make a great garden snack without any cooking or seasoning needed. They are also very easy to make into a side dish by simply adding butter, salt and pepper and making them hot, either by sautéing on the stove or wrapping them in aluminum foil and throwing them on the grill.

Cucumbers

When working on the vegetable farm, I would grab a cucumber out of the field for a fresh snack. Super easy, very hydrating, and also delicious. Cut them up into bite sized “chips” and serve them with dip. I find fresh cucumbers from the garden are sweet and refreshing enough to munch on as is. A day or two in the fridge, and I find myself wanting to coat them in dressing or dip. I also prefer the taste and texture of European cucumbers for fresh eating, which are more expensive, and almost always come wrapped in plastic. If you ever make fresh juice in a home juicer, you will love having cukes in the garden.

Cucumbers are not quite as vigorous as some of the other vegetables on this list, but they win the "easy to grow" label because you can plant seeds directly in the ground, and they grow quickly. They are susceptible to both squash vine borer and cucumber beetle, but you can avoid these pests by simply planting after their breeding period has passed. For us in Derry, this means waiting to plant cucumbers until the first week of July.

Cucumbers won't last you the whole season, but you can harvest many cucumbers off a single plant for about a month (sometimes more) and you can plant a second round easier than most other veggie crops.

Kale and Chard

Spinach and lettuce may your preference when it comes to flavor, but kale and chard are infinitely easier to grow. While spinach and lettuce have a tendency to “bolt” (begin to flower, leading to bitter leaves) kale and chard rarely do this.

Like green beans, kale is SO GOOD when plucked straight from your garden. I much on kale leaves while out in the garden all the time. You would not catch me eating plain kale I got at the grocery store, or even out of my own fridge after a few days. When fresh, I love a kale salad or some leaves on my sandwiches, and they both freeze really well for winter comfort foods like sauteed greens and soups.

Kale and Chard come in bunches that average $3 each for chemical-laden leaves. Organic will be even more by varying amounts. The value of having these plants in your kitchen garden is having a bunch of nutritious greens to add to your salads, soups, sandwiches, juicer and saute pan any time you want.

Small Fruited Peppers

It’s possible to grow an abundant crop of big bell peppers if you have tons of open space with full sun (as farmers do). But a home gardener looking to put a few plants in a raised bed will get much better results growing pepper plants that produce small fruits. Pound-for-pound the amount you get will be about the same, but individual peppers will come earlier and more often on small-fruited varieties, like with cherry vs slicing tomatoes.

In the category of "small" peppers, I'm including sweet and hot peppers. Lunchbox peppers make a lovely fresh snack and are easy to add to salads and sautes. I could do without the hot peppers myself, but my husband could not. He gets such a thrill out of gathering up all the jalapenos and making his very own hot sauce (and he puts that $#!+ on everything).

Zucchini and Summer Squash

Zucchini is so versatile. Noodle it, saute it, use it in baked goods or just cut it in half and throw it on the grill. Summer squash is equally easy to grow, though not quite as culinarily veretile as zucchini.

Zucchini grows so fast and has such big leaves that it shades out many weeds and keeps the soil beneath it cool and damp, conserving water. It will start cranking out zucchinis only about 2 months after being planted, and you can plant the seed directly in the ground. Like cucumbers, it can be damaged by Squash Vine Borer, Cucumber Beetles and Squash bugs. You can avoid these pests by waiting to plant your seeds until early July.

Like cucumbers, zucchini and summer squash won't generally last the whole season like tomatoes, but you'll get a lot of zuchinni off of one plant for about a month, and sometimes longer.

Asian Eggplant

I don't know if I've ever bought an eggplant, but I have bought babaganoush, and I tell you, being able to make it at home is a huge cost savings for us in summer when we want lots of dips and spreads for our fresh veggies, burgers and cold sandwiches.

Eggplant is very similar to peppers in this category. I grow smaller-fruited asain type eggplants, because they tend to be more prolific in my experience. Plant them with hot peppers in the garden for some pest-resistance, but watch out for Colorado Potato Beetles, because they LOVE eggplant.

Edible Flowers: Nasturtiums, Borage and Calendula

These flowers are difficult to find for sale, and if you do they tend to be very pricey (for good reason). Nasturtiums, Borage and Calendula all make excellent companion plants to your veggies as well, attracting beneficials.

All three of these edible flowers will keep cranking out flowers if you deadhead them regularly. Borage will keep cranking regardless of what you do lol. They will also self-sow in your garden, so if you let them go to seed, you will have them not just this season, but many seasons in the future.

Cut Flowers

Does EYE CANDY count?! I say yes.

The value flowers will bring to your veggie garden really cannot be overstated. They will attract beneficial insects, build your garden soil, and make your veggie garden look like a million bucks all at the same time. Plus, I am always astouded how different my kitchen feels when I have a fresh bouquet on the table. Cut flowers are #10 on my list because they aren't technically edible, but they’ve become number one on my list because of how much value they bring to my garden and my spirit.

I hope this inspires and empowers you in your gardening journey!

Cheers!!!!!

Beth :)