Sugar snap peas are one of my absolute favorite garden veggies. We like to pick them and eat them as we're walking around or working in the garden. And....my grandkids LOVE them. I always send them home with a bag full. We like sitting outside on the patio, at the end of a nice summers day and munch on a bowl of them. Barely any ever make it into the house. They would always be one of my top veggies to grow, and my first ones I plant here in Rhode Island in the spring. The plants themselves are pretty with their curling tendrils reaching up to climb, and they take up little space and need little care. Another reason I like them is the candy sweet flavor of home grown. The ones in the markets will never match their taste.
Nasturtiums. They're beautiful, attract pollinators, and you can eat the flower, the leaves, AND the seeds (when pickled). If you're in a mild climate, they'll grow all summer if given sufficient water and cut back a few times, and they will reseed themselves like crazy. I'm a recent convert, and I love nasturtiums (the seeds taste like capers and are great in salads and rice when pickled!)
Peppers. We came from Colorado, and love Mexican and southwestern food. When we moved to Wisconsin to be near our grandchildren, I was pretty sure they wouldn't grow in this climate, but I decided to try anyway. They actually do quite well. We grow bells and various kinds of chillis, such as anahiems, poblanos and jalapenos, in pots on our deck. The harvests aren't huge, but we get enough for one or two batches of chille sauce. Pretty easy to grow, too.
Peppers can overwinter inside if in pots I put mine in the ground so I don't overwinter them. I just start my peppers early February this way I get peppers you just need to pick the early flowers and wait for the flowers after you put them outside.
Yes, if you can handle some heat Jalapenos and Hungarian Wax will provide ample harvests of peppers all summer. Varieties that need to ripen to red though expect to wait until labor day to eat them so might not want to devote too much space for something that takes so long. Last year I tried Serrano from the box store, super productive as well, early harvests, but much hotter then grocery store seranos. This year I am trying seed starts, just planted them yesterday in a heat mat, Holy Mole and Greek Peperocinni.
@@DarrenEngh Mad Hatter starts they sell at Home Depot was very sweet and productive. Problem is they don't ripen until Labor Day so it's one of those that doesn't reward until the end. The odd shape also makes culinary use more difficult to cut up. There is a tiny bit of heat only in the seed mass that if removed is gone. I am surprised how much hotter the Bonnie Plants peppers I grow taste compared to store bought. The poblanos I grew the year before had significantly noticeable heat whereas the commercial ones in the grocery store are like green peppers. The Serrano were strikingly hot.
@@GardenerScott I have a little patch of perennial onions and garlic chives that stay viable much of the winter. That helps with the flavoring about 10 months of the year.
Onions are so cheap to buy that I dont even bother to grow them. I have a limited space in my backyard, so I only grow veggies and herbs that are expensive to buy at the store.
@@GardenerScott Although these may be inexpensive and accessible in the stores wouldn’t you say that the ones you grow would taste a lot better than the ones you buy in the store?
It may be good to mention what kind of onions - Bulb, or Spring. Spring onions don't take as much space, and you'll use them in soups throughout the year, plus you can just keep topping them. Ya, bulbous onions I might pass over. What I really miss from my childhood in North Dakota, are the pungent wild onions of the north plains. I wish I had some to cultivate. I hope they're not extinct.
Sunflowers! Great for snacks, attracting pollinators, and they are just beautiful! I also want to try asparagus and artichokes. Those are two of my favorites and can be expensive to buy.
Great video. One thing I have to consider seriously is storage. I know myself. It will not get pickled, canned, or made into jam at my house. :) For me, it needs to freeze well or dehydrate well. By the way, Roma tomatoes freeze really well. I just wash and dry them, lay on a cookie sheet and freeze, then put in a ziplock bag. When I'm ready to make sauce, just run under hot water for a minute and the skin peels right off. I don't think this would work well with slicer tomatoes, but I've never tried.
I like kale, but it requires a lot of chewing so I tend of avoid it, unless I cut it into very small pieces. BUT, I found that in soups or stews kale is amazing. I cooked some beef stew and into it I added so much kale I could hardly believe it, and it made the stew taste better and was thicker and I am sure it added a ton of nutrition to that stew. That is my favorite thing for kale. Saw it on a PBS cooking show and would have never thought if it.
Try cutting Julienne... remove the thick stalks and chop fine, then wrap the leaves in tight tubes and cut thin slices... add to soups or put in a frying pan with olive oil and garlic. Also check Portuguese Caldo Verde, a potato kale soup
Turnips and beet will always be on my list, first because they grow well here, but I get the advantage of harvesting the TOPS as well as the root. Double duty crops...
Personally, I like to grow broccoli. I love broccoli and eat it with everything. It was also suprisingly easy to grow, saved a ton of money from the grocery store, you can get multiple harvests if you are lucky, and you can eat every part of the plant including the stalk and leaves. I think storage is going to be my main deciding factor for the upcoming season. I have let too much good food go to waste from not eating it fast enough.
@@denisegirmer4550 Drape tulle over it once your heads start to form. Once your first heads are harvested you might want to take the tulle off to let the bees come germinate the new flowers so you get more harvest..
I dehydrate a lot of my foods, Freeze, and can. I was extremely crunched for time last year and tomatoes were almost over the edge. I threw them in a freezer bag and tossed them in the freezer. they were great in soups stews and chili. No waste here!! Dehydrated peppers, Kale, Fruit, Raspberries and strawberries, currents, blueberry's, I never let anything go to waste. and now I share with all my neighbors. Times are hard, I am glad I can help with my gardens bounty.
Such a very timely presentation, because as l was watching the tv just today, and seeing the long long lines of people going to the food banks in America because of the Pandemic, this is so needed in our society today. Just basic survival skills! And much healthier and most importantly cheaper. Requires some hard work but will pay off in the end! Thank you again. Blessings
I like to grow a pumpkin plant for jack-o-lanterns and pumpkin soup in October because it is just so much fun. Looking for the first pumpkin and watching it swell beyond belief is the good life!
I think it only works well in warmer climates but okra can throw some pods like crazy. And peppers aren't a major filling food crop but a few plants can add lots of flavor and medicinal quality to your food.
I have gotten overwhelmed by starting too big in the past. I am not physically able to do much at the moment, so I am planning to grow mostly herbs and some perennial veggies next year. I am focusing on improving the soil this fall - compost, cover crop, etc. I have some strawberries and ordered two fruit bushes. Hopefully I will be able to start doing a bit more in later years
Honeyberries and Chilean Guava bushes are great for me. No fuss. Great producers (just get 2 or more of each to make sure pollinate each other and ensure the Honeyberries are a sweet variety - loads to choose from!!)
Love how honest you are to share some failures/ not good choice with all of us. My tribe doesn’t like kale,chard, spinach etc... however, I make my own dog food & use it that way. Loaded with lots of good stuff for my fur babies 😉
I grew leaf lettuce last year and it did surprisingly well; tastes great with the peppers, green onions, and carrots I grew too. Going to try a raised bed this year along with my 30x40 regular garden.
I agree on lettuce! Especially the kind where you can harvest the outer leaves continuously. Grows fast and you can mix varieties in one bed and thus avoid buying those expensive baby salad leaf mixes in the supermarket. And you can stick individual plants in little shady spots where other things won‘t grow well (I live in a hot climate).
We always grow our own tomatoes, last year we had a particularly large crop of various cherry tomatoes. We froze many large bags of them and then roast them with our homegrown garlic to make a wonderful tomato sauce.
A little late in responding, but... Welsh onions or topset onions. Both of these are perennial green onions. If you harvest the tops rather than the entire plant, they'll keep coming back and gradually multiply. In zone six or higher, they'll be available pretty much year round--just walk out to the garden and get some onions--though they may need some protection on the coldest nights in winter. They add flavor to just about everything, much like garlic, but they're essentially always available.
Important Note: The Irish Potato Famine was a complex issue beyond just planting mainly potatoes. The majority Catholic Irish had been slowly conquered via a combination of laws and punitive actions by Great Britain and were were treated as second-class citizens. Their rights to their lands had been forcibly taken over the centuries and they were left to become renters on those same lands in the hands of the British-favored Anglicans known as the Ascendancy, which lands were not good for most kinds of farming or the crops were left at the whim of the landlords or their largely independent middlemen. This was the first big issue. Potatoes were an exception to that farming problem. They are cheap and prolific, an excellent staple crop. But mainly one cultivar of potato was used in Ireland; there are literally thousands of kinds that were specially bred by South-American native cultures for all manner of climates and altitudes (Cogito has a good overview video here on YT). Having monocultures (aka single-species crops) leaves your whole crop vulnerable to diseases and pests that reduce or destroy yield. And that is just what happened- a fungal epidemic swept through Ireland (along with much of Europe) and wiped out the potato plants. This was the second major issue. The final and perhaps most ghastly issue is both the simplest and yet also the most complex- prejudice, namely the prejudice of the lord in charge over Ireland. He, and many other British lords, subscribed to the theories of Malthus- in short the attitudes and theories espoused by Thanos in the Avengers movies. To their views the death of the commoners to starvation was a part of a natural cycle of overpopulation (which was half-true in large parts of the world until the Enlightenment era and Industrial Revolution gave us the scientific method and tools to increase and even bypass the carrying capacity of the lands we depended on for agriculture). Such beliefs were pervasive even to the point that the government over Ireland turned away ships bearing relief supplies of food and medicine. It was not just a potato famine, but top-down agricultural mismanagement, elitist prejudice, and a genocide-by-famine. Monocultures still persist today in vast industrial farms as crops are favored which produce in volume rather than are resistant to harsh weather or blight. The Malthus’ error-ridden theories still rear their cruel heads in discussions of supposed overpopulation (which really should focus on resource management and distribution rather than the false specter of overpopulation; we are far from worldwide overpopulation and starvation is in fact an issue of inequality and privilege). This is also why home gardening and crop diversity are so important. These are not just cost-cutting and satisfying knowledge and skills and resources. These are backup skills for survival in case local food supplies or financial or logistical networks fail. This is our lifeblood and heritage as humans. Learn it and thrive.
Bananas are a monoculture of a single variety just waiting for something like that. They said the earlier variety in the first half of the 20th c was wiped out and it used to taste much more like "banana" flavored candy than the variety we use now.
The best investment for my future garden is my freezer. I ended up getting one for cheap and it's huge. In it, I'll be storing a lot of produce from my garden. I'm itching to get started! I also happen to have room in my cupboard for fermentation pots, jamjars, or dried seeds and herbs for tea, cooking, and meds. I'm ready!
Some great tips Scott, thanks! I use "storage" / " Preserving" as one of my main selectors. Either direct storage like winter squash, or dehydrating, canning, freezing, and fermenting. Then any surges in harvest can be saved for the fall or winter
Tomatillos. I think of them as my doomsday prepper crop -- super-easy to grow, prolific, versatile (incredible for salsas, marinades, etc), and seem utterly impervious to pests, even when the foliage is under attack, the fruits remain totally viable, as though the beautiful paper lantern that contains them acts as a force field against pests. We roast them along with some habaneros and garlic, throw it all in the food processor, and you've got the base for the best salsa verde you've ever had, as well as a great base for many different marinades.
Tomatoes, Peppers, Leeks, Celery, Green Beans, Kale, Collards, Swiss Chard, Potatoes, Tomatillos. That’s our go to. We do put in others but we struggle with salad greens.
Oh my gosh...listening to this I realized that every year I make room to grow eggplant, even though everyone in my family hates it, including me! I also grow a giant trellis of Armenian cucumbers, but could easily do with one plant and make more room for pickling cucumbers. Silly me, but thanks for a thought-provoking episode.
There's nothing wrong with growing food strictly for your compost pile. I do. I don't have enough food scraps or yard waste or other "green" material for my compost pile, so I grow an excess of vegetables from my garden instead. But unless you have a sufficiently hot compost pile, you'll want to remove most of the seeds. They will overwinter very "nicely" and you will get a boatload of volunteers. My garden is full of zucchini and Jalopeno and Datil pepper volunteers. I guess my compost pile didn't get hot enough for long enough.
@@VladTheImpalerTepesIII Just scoop the seeds out for next year before throwing them on the compost pile. They will break down faster, too, if they've been "chunked" up first. Just a suggestion.
@@savedafter50 Thanks, but I have too many plants and therefore too many veggies and not enough time or ambition to clean the seeds out of my composted veggies. Funny thing I learned since I posted here is that seeds will live through multiple winters out side in the compost. They may not sprout the first year, but they might a year or 2 later. It's strange as I never thought tomato, pepper and zucchini seeds would overwinter in compost for more than one season.
Thank you for all the tips Scott , I always can almost everything I grow and my garden is always wonderful it gives me so much veggies enough for eating and sharing, I follow you and try to see all your videos I learn so much from them, thank you and stay healthy 🙏🏼👍🏼💕
Great list. Can you please speak to growing lettuces/salad greens? I also live in CO and would love to know what lettuces and salad greens have worked for you (or not). Thanks so much!
When I get back to gardening (currently stuck in an apartment until my kids get done with school) I would want to grow chard. In the past it was widely available in local markets, but not so much now. Since it doesn't store, being able to harvest it directly would be great. It is my favorite cooked green.
I think green onions are worth a bit of space. They are easy, fit anywhere and have a long season. It's so handy for a salad, sandwich or stir-fry to grab o couple from outside.
Excellent list! I'd add okra, it loves TX heat. Last year, when July rolled around, my cucumbers produced all bitter fruits (has that ever happened with yours?!), peppers passed out, tomatoes stopped producing and some died, but the okras got HUGE and produced, and were over 8ft tall by the end of October
Hey Scott, Do you have a video on how to preserve fruits and vegetables after harvest? I'm sure a lot of us end up giving away our over abundance. Thanks in advance!
Peppers. while I might agree that peppers might not be the easiest plants to grow, now that i'm actually listening to people's advice on when to put peppers out, I've been having great success. My family is loving it!
basil, onion, spinach, and broccoli are all musts! I could grow 3 beds of basil and not have enough. Fresh from the garden is the best. I froze pesto this past year and it was so great to have during the winter.
Yes, peppers of all vareties. They take long time to germinate, but once sprouted they grow well. Beans are another crop. Tomato varieties are astounding. I have my favorites. I may just grow a different variety this year. We are going to pressure can a lot more stuff this summer and fall. The price of food is just nuts. Who can eat 45 pounds of tomatoes before they go bad? If you think about it for 5 minutes, if you have a hunting rifle and a pressure canner and jars, a family will NOT have to go hungry. If you can grow food, do as much as possible. You will be glad you did.
I love this , no lies were told I am preparing for my 3rd year of growing and this video gave me the idea to construct a couple beds like an herb bed, one for my strawberries and other berries I have and perhaps one for my root crops. Every year of garden has been better than the previous year so I’m hoping to continue that pattern this year
We usually try at least one new veggie each year. We tried it once many years ago and didn't like Okra that much, but I later had some pickled and loved it. I tried it again this year and it is fantastic! We have chickens now, and the higher nitrogen soil has made all the difference.
I was thinking about leeks. It's like my favourite plant to eat and it's on par with kale for price in my country.. And thanks for all your videos. It's like my 1st season out of the pots on the balcony and I need wisdom your channel provides. Thanks!
by the by, if you like mangos? but live (almost anywhere ) in the USA? try growing PawPaw trees. you need two at least, and they need shade to get started, but its a truly luscious tropical taste that is actually native to our climate.
Ok around the fence lines I grow walking onions. It is the first thing up in the spring and for a couple months we harvest green onions. You could probably grow them in a rock pile if you wanted to''' They eventually get bulbs hanging on the ends or tops that you can pick off and plant. Survives winters and they are pretty cool looking. Some call them Egyption Onions .
I haven't seen it mentioned but if your climate allows it Cucamelons (Mouse Melons) are a great beginner plant as it'll grow in most conditions and produce heaps of fruit and next year it'll grow back where you first grew it (It's impossible to get rid of once grown lol)
I've been indoor gardening for the last few years. This will be my first year outside. I'm growing sweet potatoes, orange beets, KY pole beans, and yellow golden tomatoes. Those are my staples :)
Parsley. Comes back every year, Grows in shade. We use a lot in cooking. Expensive at the shop. You can keep picking it until it goes to seed. Miint, in pots, we use a lot in cooking, often searching by flashlight at night in the garden. Doesnt need much space, lovely aroma when you brush past it while doing other things.
I don’t know if you have done this video or not. I have looked, but I am not finding it. I would love to see a video on companion plants like plants that give N and plants that need N. Also plants that should not be planted together. Thanks for all your videos you do. I really enjoy watching.
To me Zucchini goes with those squashes. And I would add Lettuces. I grown good leaf (romaine looking) lettuce that was delicious many years ago and last year had success with Black Seeded Simpson lettuce. I'm adding 3 other varieties this year. My Dad told me, you should always protect your beds from slugs with lettuces. Easy to grow and they will eat that instead of your tomatoes. Lol
Horseradish is one of my easiest crop, just got to not let it get away from you. easy to store, just wash and chop/blend in a blender with white vinegar and its ready to store or use, and if you like it on the hotter side, just grind it up finer.
Peppers are fun simply for the variety. But for eating, I get the most out of green beans and eggplants. I love fun eggplant varieties and they're hard to find in the store, and rarely have pests for me. And green beans grow SO many, and freeze so perfectly.
chili peppers, onions, and sunchokes. I can't get my young kids to eat fresh tomatoes, but I grow some for us adults tho limited by our short and cool season.
Lettuce, all kinds! Endive, Swiss Chard. I loathe beets, but beet greens might be my favorite food, so I grow Tall Top beets. If I could grow colorful bell peppers, it would save me a ton of $, but I never have any luck with those. Also spend a fortune on shallots, but I don't think they grow in my region.
Green spring onions are expensive but it's great for salad seasoned with vinegar and salt.Goes great with pasta with eggs or roasted meat and French fries and so on.In Croatia it is common on the table,especially for Easter breakfast.
I guess the point is if you are going to grow it in your garden you might as well grow specialty varieties or ones that don't store well. Purple carrots, fingerling potatoes, pea pods, green beans.
My grandpa brought 2 types of tomato seeds from Germany in WWII. Big German and Beefsteak. We’ve been growin those varieties since then. Pap grow an almost 7 pound mater once.. Heck I don’t even eat tomatoes but I still grow them every year in remembrance to pap.
Kale, collard, spinach, and other leafy vegetables can be dehydrated, and made into a powder. You can just take a tablespoon of this powder and put it into your soup or your smoothie, and add an extra punch of vitamins that you normally would not get! That’s what I do with the green kale, collards and other greens
Thank you, Scott. That video was very informative. I love the must grow plants you identified. I would add to the list are peppers and sweet peas. I love both.
wow. congratulations on reaching 100,000 subscribers. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experiences with us. i have been gardening for a while and still learn so much from you. thanks.
OMG i didn't notice till you said something about it. Good for him. So happy for him. He is easily my fav channel and that says a lot because i have several great channels that i follow. Congrats Gardener Scott. Very well done my friend. Your awesome.
ONIONS should of made the list in my opinion but i am not as experienced as scott. I have a potato tower going now and it seems to be doing great. I plan on growing multiple towers next year. green beans are my favorite to grow. I love going out in the moring with my daughter and picking green beans. Lost year we had a late freeze and the only things i did great with last year it was Tomato and garlic
I read several comments about bitter cucumbers. For me (northern Mississippi), that happens when the weather just gets too hot. This year I’m planning to trellis them against a fence that gets afternoon shade. I’m hoping they’ll be happier. My grandfather told me years ago that if you cut the ends off the cucumber and wipe each end of the cucumber with the pieces from the opposite ends, it won’t be bitter anymore. 🤷🏻♀️
The variety of cucumbers also really defines the bitterness level. I haven't found any non hybrid seeds, but there are a couple of hybrid varieties that are definitely free of bitterness :D
Hello! I love Your channel! Thanks for your work!! :) Sunchokes, josta, fig, juneberry are my favourites, worth mentioning. Easy to grow, fast, productive. Cheers from Hungary!
Excellent Video! Dehydrating tomatoes with fresh basil, oregano, garlic, and sea salt is a good way to make tomatoes last a long time. We love kale too! Kale salad with olive oil massaged in and then nutritional yeast, finely chopped cashews, lemon juice and salt. So great. Can't wait for my very own organic food to grow in my backyard!
This year, I'm planting tomatoes, peppers, basil, carrots, peas, beets, kale, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, radishes in my garden bed. Also will have potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes and onions in pots. Subscribed to your channel!
I've found that some of the easiest things to grow are the most expensive at the store bc those plants are difficult to harvest mechanically. Berries, tomatoes, peppers etc. I grow lots of herbs especially tea herbs and medicinal herbs, supplements and herbal teas are pretty pricy.
Yum! Tomatoes are hard to kill, I thought my sisters planted tomatoes in our mothers garden but it turned out I buried kitchen scraps which contained dead tomatoes. Next thing yu know there's a tomato jungle growing on the shady fence line .
I think peas should make the list. The don't take much space if you use a trellis, and I love to go out and pick a few for a salad or stir fry. Peppers as well. We grow banana peppers in containers and bring them in when it gets cold to extend the season. I don't particularly like them when they are green, so I let them get red.
PEPPERS are absolutely on my top 10.
They almost made the list, but often don't do well in cold regions.
Jalapeno's are my personal favorite.
@@GardenerScott they grow like weeds in hot sunny Arizona and so do most herbs.
We love peppers and eat them constantly...but have never managed to successfully grow a plant...
I got about 20 or so myself. Didnt think they would all come up but had a better turn out than i thought. Love em so much.
Sugar snap peas are one of my absolute favorite garden veggies. We like to pick them and eat them as we're walking around or working in the garden. And....my grandkids LOVE them. I always send them home with a bag full. We like sitting outside on the patio, at the end of a nice summers day and munch on a bowl of them. Barely any ever make it into the house. They would always be one of my top veggies to grow, and my first ones I plant here in Rhode Island in the spring. The plants themselves are pretty with their curling tendrils reaching up to climb, and they take up little space and need little care. Another reason I like them is the candy sweet flavor of home grown. The ones in the markets will never match their taste.
I try and grow peas as an early spring plant and fall plant. Essential to using as a rotational crop in addition to their deliciousness.
Nasturtiums. They're beautiful, attract pollinators, and you can eat the flower, the leaves, AND the seeds (when pickled). If you're in a mild climate, they'll grow all summer if given sufficient water and cut back a few times, and they will reseed themselves like crazy. I'm a recent convert, and I love nasturtiums (the seeds taste like capers and are great in salads and rice when pickled!)
My aunt grew nasturtiums with no problem and I failed at it. We live in different parts of the same town.
Peppers. We came from Colorado, and love Mexican and southwestern food. When we moved to Wisconsin to be near our grandchildren, I was pretty sure they wouldn't grow in this climate, but I decided to try anyway. They actually do quite well. We grow bells and various kinds of chillis, such as anahiems, poblanos and jalapenos, in pots on our deck. The harvests aren't huge, but we get enough for one or two batches of chille sauce. Pretty easy to grow, too.
Peppers can overwinter inside if in pots I put mine in the ground so I don't overwinter them. I just start my peppers early February this way I get peppers you just need to pick the early flowers and wait for the flowers after you put them outside.
Yes, if you can handle some heat Jalapenos and Hungarian Wax will provide ample harvests of peppers all summer. Varieties that need to ripen to red though expect to wait until labor day to eat them so might not want to devote too much space for something that takes so long. Last year I tried Serrano from the box store, super productive as well, early harvests, but much hotter then grocery store seranos. This year I am trying seed starts, just planted them yesterday in a heat mat, Holy Mole and Greek Peperocinni.
@@Nightowl2548 Yes, I'm in Wisconsin, and I had a plethora of Jalapenos, Anaheim, and banana peppers. Trying more hot peppers this year.
@@DarrenEngh Mad Hatter starts they sell at Home Depot was very sweet and productive. Problem is they don't ripen until Labor Day so it's one of those that doesn't reward until the end. The odd shape also makes culinary use more difficult to cut up. There is a tiny bit of heat only in the seed mass that if removed is gone. I am surprised how much hotter the Bonnie Plants peppers I grow taste compared to store bought. The poblanos I grew the year before had significantly noticeable heat whereas the commercial ones in the grocery store are like green peppers. The Serrano were strikingly hot.
@@Nightowl2548 I love my Hungarian Wax peppers! Grow them for Spanish Hamburgers and Pot Roast! 😋
I would put onions on the list, much like garlic very easy to grow and it improves flavor of many things when combined.
They almost made the top 10, except that they take a long time to grow and are usually inexpensive at the store.
@@GardenerScott I have a little patch of perennial onions and garlic chives that stay viable much of the winter. That helps with the flavoring about 10 months of the year.
Onions are so cheap to buy that I dont even bother to grow them.
I have a limited space in my backyard, so I only grow veggies and herbs that are expensive to buy at the store.
@@GardenerScott Although these may be inexpensive and accessible in the stores wouldn’t you say that the ones you grow would taste a lot better than the ones you buy in the store?
It may be good to mention what kind of onions - Bulb, or Spring. Spring onions don't take as much space, and you'll use them in soups throughout the year, plus you can just keep topping them. Ya, bulbous onions I might pass over. What I really miss from my childhood in North Dakota, are the pungent wild onions of the north plains. I wish I had some to cultivate. I hope they're not extinct.
Sunflowers! Great for snacks, attracting pollinators, and they are just beautiful!
I also want to try asparagus and artichokes. Those are two of my favorites and can be expensive to buy.
"Winter squashes are just one of these things that can't be beet." :D
not really a squash person as was forced to eat a lot of it growing up, prefer hot peppers, herbs and tomatoes
Great video. One thing I have to consider seriously is storage. I know myself. It will not get pickled, canned, or made into jam at my house. :) For me, it needs to freeze well or dehydrate well. By the way, Roma tomatoes freeze really well. I just wash and dry them, lay on a cookie sheet and freeze, then put in a ziplock bag. When I'm ready to make sauce, just run under hot water for a minute and the skin peels right off. I don't think this would work well with slicer tomatoes, but I've never tried.
Thanks! That's another reason tomatoes are my number one. They freeze well and can make great sauce, which also freezes well.
@@GardenerScott Freeze tomatoes? I did not know that. Thanks for the tip.
The skin trick does indeed work with slicer tomatoes also. :)
@Linda Do you freeze them whole?
@@sc8307 Yes! Very easy to do.
I like kale, but it requires a lot of chewing so I tend of avoid it, unless I cut it into very small pieces. BUT, I found that in soups or stews kale is amazing. I cooked some beef stew and into it I added so much kale I could hardly believe it, and it made the stew taste better and was thicker and I am sure it added a ton of nutrition to that stew. That is my favorite thing for kale. Saw it on a PBS cooking show and would have never thought if it.
Try cutting Julienne... remove the thick stalks and chop fine, then wrap the leaves in tight tubes and cut thin slices... add to soups or put in a frying pan with olive oil and garlic. Also check Portuguese Caldo Verde, a potato kale soup
@@tesstess3371
That is exactly what I said ... chop it up and add it to a stew ... it is awesome end even make the stew better.
10. Berries 9. Beets 8. Cucumbers 7. Garlic 6. Potatoes 5. Winter Squash 4. Beans 3. Kale 2. Zucchini 1. Tomatoes
Turnips and beet will always be on my list, first because they grow well here, but I get the advantage of harvesting the TOPS as well as the root. Double duty crops...
Carrots too if you've ever seen carrot top pesto. I tried it and its delicious!
Personally, I like to grow broccoli. I love broccoli and eat it with everything. It was also suprisingly easy to grow, saved a ton of money from the grocery store, you can get multiple harvests if you are lucky, and you can eat every part of the plant including the stalk and leaves.
I think storage is going to be my main deciding factor for the upcoming season. I have let too much good food go to waste from not eating it fast enough.
Broccoli freezes well 🙂
Any tips for preventing pests ? Broccoli is tough here near me! Moths always get at it!
I'm growing "too many" tomatoes!
My chickens love them 😁
@@denisegirmer4550 Drape tulle over it once your heads start to form. Once your first heads are harvested you might want to take the tulle off to let the bees come germinate the new flowers so you get more harvest..
The groundhogs love my broccoli, cauliflower and cabbages.
I dehydrate a lot of my foods, Freeze, and can. I was extremely crunched for time last year and tomatoes were almost over the edge. I threw them in a freezer bag and tossed them in the freezer. they were great in soups stews and chili. No waste here!! Dehydrated peppers, Kale, Fruit, Raspberries and strawberries, currents, blueberry's, I never let anything go to waste. and now I share with all my neighbors. Times are hard, I am glad I can help with my gardens bounty.
Sounds so simple but we are all guilty of this. I'm a first year gardener and I'm growing all kinds of crazy thing lol.
Enjoy and experiment! Also, grow some flowers and herbs and at least one beautiful plant.
Hearing you talk about veggies that produce and produce has my mouth watering for springtime gardening!
Such a very timely presentation, because as l was watching the tv just today, and seeing the long long lines of people going to the food banks in America because of the Pandemic, this is so needed in our society today. Just basic survival skills! And much healthier and most importantly cheaper. Requires some hard work but will pay off in the end! Thank you again. Blessings
I like to grow a pumpkin plant for jack-o-lanterns and pumpkin soup in October because it is just so much fun. Looking for the first pumpkin and watching it swell beyond belief is the good life!
Bell peppers, sweet banana peppers, herbs of all kinds and summer squash, crook neck and straight neck yellows are our favorite.
I think it only works well in warmer climates but okra can throw some pods like crazy. And peppers aren't a major filling food crop but a few plants can add lots of flavor and medicinal quality to your food.
I grew okra this year and it was great. I'm in zone 6a.
I have gotten overwhelmed by starting too big in the past. I am not physically able to do much at the moment, so I am planning to grow mostly herbs and some perennial veggies next year. I am focusing on improving the soil this fall - compost, cover crop, etc. I have some strawberries and ordered two fruit bushes. Hopefully I will be able to start doing a bit more in later years
Rhubarb is a great perennial crop and it makes for some tasty cakes and syrup!
Honeyberries and Chilean Guava bushes are great for me. No fuss. Great producers (just get 2 or more of each to make sure pollinate each other and ensure the Honeyberries are a sweet variety - loads to choose from!!)
Love how honest you are to share some failures/ not good choice with all of us. My tribe doesn’t like kale,chard, spinach etc... however, I make my own dog food & use it that way. Loaded with lots of good stuff for my fur babies 😉
I grew leaf lettuce last year and it did surprisingly well; tastes great with the peppers, green onions, and carrots I grew too.
Going to try a raised bed this year along with my 30x40 regular garden.
I agree on lettuce! Especially the kind where you can harvest the outer leaves continuously. Grows fast and you can mix varieties in one bed and thus avoid buying those expensive baby salad leaf mixes in the supermarket. And you can stick individual plants in little shady spots where other things won‘t grow well (I live in a hot climate).
Lettuce is great but I'm always scared to accidentally have slugs in it 😅
We always grow our own tomatoes, last year we had a particularly large crop of various cherry tomatoes. We froze many large bags of them and then roast them with our homegrown garlic to make a wonderful tomato sauce.
Great ideas. I have always grown Snap & snow peas -10/10
Another easy & trouble free crop - Asparagus
A little late in responding, but... Welsh onions or topset onions. Both of these are perennial green onions. If you harvest the tops rather than the entire plant, they'll keep coming back and gradually multiply. In zone six or higher, they'll be available pretty much year round--just walk out to the garden and get some onions--though they may need some protection on the coldest nights in winter. They add flavor to just about everything, much like garlic, but they're essentially always available.
Important Note: The Irish Potato Famine was a complex issue beyond just planting mainly potatoes.
The majority Catholic Irish had been slowly conquered via a combination of laws and punitive actions by Great Britain and were were treated as second-class citizens. Their rights to their lands had been forcibly taken over the centuries and they were left to become renters on those same lands in the hands of the British-favored Anglicans known as the Ascendancy, which lands were not good for most kinds of farming or the crops were left at the whim of the landlords or their largely independent middlemen. This was the first big issue.
Potatoes were an exception to that farming problem. They are cheap and prolific, an excellent staple crop. But mainly one cultivar of potato was used in Ireland; there are literally thousands of kinds that were specially bred by South-American native cultures for all manner of climates and altitudes (Cogito has a good overview video here on YT). Having monocultures (aka single-species crops) leaves your whole crop vulnerable to diseases and pests that reduce or destroy yield. And that is just what happened- a fungal epidemic swept through Ireland (along with much of Europe) and wiped out the potato plants. This was the second major issue.
The final and perhaps most ghastly issue is both the simplest and yet also the most complex- prejudice, namely the prejudice of the lord in charge over Ireland. He, and many other British lords, subscribed to the theories of Malthus- in short the attitudes and theories espoused by Thanos in the Avengers movies. To their views the death of the commoners to starvation was a part of a natural cycle of overpopulation (which was half-true in large parts of the world until the Enlightenment era and Industrial Revolution gave us the scientific method and tools to increase and even bypass the carrying capacity of the lands we depended on for agriculture). Such beliefs were pervasive even to the point that the government over Ireland turned away ships bearing relief supplies of food and medicine.
It was not just a potato famine, but top-down agricultural mismanagement, elitist prejudice, and a genocide-by-famine. Monocultures still persist today in vast industrial farms as crops are favored which produce in volume rather than are resistant to harsh weather or blight. The Malthus’ error-ridden theories still rear their cruel heads in discussions of supposed overpopulation (which really should focus on resource management and distribution rather than the false specter of overpopulation; we are far from worldwide overpopulation and starvation is in fact an issue of inequality and privilege).
This is also why home gardening and crop diversity are so important. These are not just cost-cutting and satisfying knowledge and skills and resources. These are backup skills for survival in case local food supplies or financial or logistical networks fail. This is our lifeblood and heritage as humans. Learn it and thrive.
Bananas are a monoculture of a single variety just waiting for something like that. They said the earlier variety in the first half of the 20th c was wiped out and it used to taste much more like "banana" flavored candy than the variety we use now.
1. Tomatoes
2. Zucchini
3. Kale
4. beans (any kind)
5. Winter squash (butternut)
6. Potatoes
7. Garlic
8. Cucumber
9. beets
10. berries ( strawberries, raspberries, black berries etc)
Thanks so much for the list !!!
The best investment for my future garden is my freezer. I ended up getting one for cheap and it's huge. In it, I'll be storing a lot of produce from my garden. I'm itching to get started! I also happen to have room in my cupboard for fermentation pots, jamjars, or dried seeds and herbs for tea, cooking, and meds. I'm ready!
Some great tips Scott, thanks! I use "storage" / " Preserving" as one of my main selectors. Either direct storage like winter squash, or dehydrating, canning, freezing, and fermenting. Then any surges in harvest can be saved for the fall or winter
Good stuff!
Tomatillos. I think of them as my doomsday prepper crop -- super-easy to grow, prolific, versatile (incredible for salsas, marinades, etc), and seem utterly impervious to pests, even when the foliage is under attack, the fruits remain totally viable, as though the beautiful paper lantern that contains them acts as a force field against pests. We roast them along with some habaneros and garlic, throw it all in the food processor, and you've got the base for the best salsa verde you've ever had, as well as a great base for many different marinades.
My tomatillos always get massive quantities of earwigs inside the “lantern”
I grow green chile and lemon cucumber every year because not only they grow so easily but they taste so good.
Tomatoes, Peppers, Leeks, Celery, Green Beans, Kale, Collards, Swiss Chard, Potatoes, Tomatillos. That’s our go to. We do put in others but we struggle with salad greens.
Best gardening channel on youtube. Well done Scott and thanks!
Thanks 👍
Peas!! ❤ I am in zone 5b Colorado too and peas are always so so easy and abundant and I harvest off them all year.
Oh my gosh...listening to this I realized that every year I make room to grow eggplant, even though everyone in my family hates it, including me! I also grow a giant trellis of Armenian cucumbers, but could easily do with one plant and make more room for pickling cucumbers. Silly me, but thanks for a thought-provoking episode.
Glad to help.
There's nothing wrong with growing food strictly for your compost pile. I do. I don't have enough food scraps or yard waste or other "green" material for my compost pile, so I grow an excess of vegetables from my garden instead. But unless you have a sufficiently hot compost pile, you'll want to remove most of the seeds. They will overwinter very "nicely" and you will get a boatload of volunteers. My garden is full of zucchini and Jalopeno and Datil pepper volunteers. I guess my compost pile didn't get hot enough for long enough.
No one in my family likes it either but it sure is a pretty plant!
@@VladTheImpalerTepesIII Just scoop the seeds out for next year before throwing them on the compost pile. They will break down faster, too, if they've been "chunked" up first. Just a suggestion.
@@savedafter50 Thanks, but I have too many plants and therefore too many veggies and not enough time or ambition to clean the seeds out of my composted veggies. Funny thing I learned since I posted here is that seeds will live through multiple winters out side in the compost. They may not sprout the first year, but they might a year or 2 later. It's strange as I never thought tomato, pepper and zucchini seeds would overwinter in compost for more than one season.
Thank you for all the tips Scott , I always can almost everything I grow and my garden is always wonderful it gives me so much veggies enough for eating and sharing, I follow you and try to see all your videos I learn so much from them, thank you and stay healthy 🙏🏼👍🏼💕
Thank you, Consuelo!
Great list. Can you please speak to growing lettuces/salad greens? I also live in CO and would love to know what lettuces and salad greens have worked for you (or not). Thanks so much!
Great suggestion! I've had goo success with leaf lettuce, not so much with head lettuce.
Try Swiss Chard, Arugula, Collards, Mustard Greens 😎
It helps to grow salad crops in a shady area - they don't like to be scorched
When I get back to gardening (currently stuck in an apartment until my kids get done with school) I would want to grow chard. In the past it was widely available in local markets, but not so much now. Since it doesn't store, being able to harvest it directly would be great. It is my favorite cooked green.
Lactofermented tomatoes onions and garlic are amazing
I think green onions are worth a bit of space. They are easy, fit anywhere and have a long season. It's so handy for a salad, sandwich or stir-fry to grab o couple from outside.
Chard and lettuce are both really great, I think!
You have voice and you talk the way i could listen to you talking about anything for hours
Excellent list! I'd add okra, it loves TX heat. Last year, when July rolled around, my cucumbers produced all bitter fruits (has that ever happened with yours?!), peppers passed out, tomatoes stopped producing and some died, but the okras got HUGE and produced, and were over 8ft tall by the end of October
I considered okra, but it doesn't do well in my area. I have had bitter cucumbers; it's often a lack of water.
Our cucumbers last summer were bitter. 1st time
I do mostly low carb diet so wanted to grow herbs and hot peppers in my garden.
Hey Scott,
Do you have a video on how to preserve fruits and vegetables after harvest? I'm sure a lot of us end up giving away our over abundance.
Thanks in advance!
I have a number of videos on pickling, dehydrating, freeze drying, jelly making, and fermenting.
Peppers. while I might agree that peppers might not be the easiest plants to grow, now that i'm actually listening to people's advice on when to put peppers out, I've been having great success. My family is loving it!
basil, onion, spinach, and broccoli are all musts! I could grow 3 beds of basil and not have enough. Fresh from the garden is the best. I froze pesto this past year and it was so great to have during the winter.
I love basil. I'm growing four different varieties this year.
I love basil. I'm growing four different varieties this year.
I've just discovered your channel. I'm so happy to find a great channel in my zone. I'm not a new gardener, but there is always much to learn.
Yes, peppers of all vareties. They take long time to germinate, but once sprouted they grow well. Beans are another crop. Tomato varieties are astounding. I have my favorites. I may just grow a different variety this year. We are going to pressure can a lot more stuff this summer and fall. The price of food is just nuts. Who can eat 45 pounds of tomatoes before they go bad? If you think about it for 5 minutes, if you have a hunting rifle and a pressure canner and jars, a family will NOT have to go hungry. If you can grow food, do as much as possible. You will be glad you did.
I'm planning on growing some Chard this season.
I usually can't get up early enough for your weekly live but I love watching your videos
Hot peppers are a must in my home.
I love this , no lies were told I am preparing for my 3rd year of growing and this video gave me the idea to construct a couple beds like an herb bed, one for my strawberries and other berries I have and perhaps one for my root crops. Every year of garden has been better than the previous year so I’m hoping to continue that pattern this year
Excellently done! I agree across the board. I tend to throw a hot pepper in there too, and bell peppers also.
We usually try at least one new veggie each year. We tried it once many years ago and didn't like Okra that much, but I later had some pickled and loved it. I tried it again this year and it is fantastic! We have chickens now, and the higher nitrogen soil has made all the difference.
I was thinking about leeks. It's like my favourite plant to eat and it's on par with kale for price in my country..
And thanks for all your videos. It's like my 1st season out of the pots on the balcony and I need wisdom your channel provides. Thanks!
by the by, if you like mangos? but live (almost anywhere ) in the USA? try growing PawPaw trees. you need two at least, and they need shade to get started, but its a truly luscious tropical taste that is actually native to our climate.
Ok around the fence lines I grow walking onions. It is the first thing up in the spring and for a couple months we harvest green onions. You could probably grow them in a rock pile if you wanted to''' They eventually get bulbs hanging on the ends or tops that you can pick off and plant. Survives winters and they are pretty cool looking. Some call them Egyption Onions .
I’ve been searching for a good source for walking onions. May I ask where you got them? Thanks!
I haven't seen it mentioned but if your climate allows it Cucamelons (Mouse Melons) are a great beginner plant as it'll grow in most conditions and produce heaps of fruit and next year it'll grow back where you first grew it (It's impossible to get rid of once grown lol)
Thanks
Broccoli, we eat a lot of it and after you harvest the main head the side shoots just keep coming. And I find them easy to grow.
I've been indoor gardening for the last few years. This will be my first year outside. I'm growing sweet potatoes, orange beets, KY pole beans, and yellow golden tomatoes. Those are my staples :)
Good choices.
Spaghetti Squash worked well for me up north. It. Lasted all winter in a small crate in my dining room that is usually in the 60-66 degree range.
Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and herbs especially mint, parsley and coriander.
Parsley. Comes back every year, Grows in shade. We use a lot in cooking. Expensive at the shop. You can keep picking it until it goes to seed. Miint, in pots, we use a lot in cooking, often searching by flashlight at night in the garden. Doesnt need much space, lovely aroma when you brush past it while doing other things.
Thank you. Very good suggestions and lists.
I don’t know if you have done this video or not. I have looked, but I am not finding it. I would love to see a video on companion plants like plants that give N and plants that need N. Also plants that should not be planted together. Thanks for all your videos you do. I really enjoy watching.
Not yet! But it's in the plan. Thanks.
To me Zucchini goes with those squashes. And I would add Lettuces. I grown good leaf (romaine looking) lettuce that was delicious many years ago and last year had success with Black Seeded Simpson lettuce. I'm adding 3 other varieties this year. My Dad told me, you should always protect your beds from slugs with lettuces. Easy to grow and they will eat that instead of your tomatoes. Lol
Horseradish is one of my easiest crop, just got to not let it get away from you. easy to store, just wash and chop/blend in a blender with white vinegar and its ready to store or use, and if you like it on the hotter side, just grind it up finer.
We grow and preserve a lot of corn every year.
Top 10
10. Berries- strawberries, raspberries, blackberries
9. Beets
8. Cucumbers
7. Potatoes
6. Winter squash- Butternut squash
5. Garlic
4. Beans
3. Kale
2. Zucchini
1. Tomatoes
Peppers are fun simply for the variety. But for eating, I get the most out of green beans and eggplants. I love fun eggplant varieties and they're hard to find in the store, and rarely have pests for me. And green beans grow SO many, and freeze so perfectly.
Yes herbs! Cilantro, basil, rosemary, would love those handy. Thyme makes it through the cold winters so that’s another good one💕
I would add chives
chili peppers, onions, and sunchokes. I can't get my young kids to eat fresh tomatoes, but I grow some for us adults tho limited by our short and cool season.
Lettuce, all kinds! Endive, Swiss Chard. I loathe beets, but beet greens might be my favorite food, so I grow Tall Top beets. If I could grow colorful bell peppers, it would save me a ton of $, but I never have any luck with those. Also spend a fortune on shallots, but I don't think they grow in my region.
If Jeff Bridges and Paul Rudd had a kid.......GREAT website! My raised-bed sweet potatoes ROCKED this Summer!
I like your style. You speak the truth and have the know-how to back it up. Thank you!
Kale is great in soups, such as potato soup and yes add garlic and a little cheese.
Cabbage, onions and peppers. Every single year :)
Green spring onions are expensive but it's great for salad seasoned with vinegar and salt.Goes great with pasta with eggs or roasted meat and French fries and so on.In Croatia it is common on the table,especially for Easter breakfast.
top ten plants
tomato, garlic, zucchini, cucumber, potato, berries, winter squash, beets (or carrots or turnips), beans, kale
Chile is the nectar of the gods!
Eggplants, peppers, radish, onions
He's telling us to grow carrots and beans, which he said not to grow in the last video, still, I'm learning A LOT. Like choose OPEN POLLINATORS.
I guess the point is if you are going to grow it in your garden you might as well grow specialty varieties or ones that don't store well. Purple carrots, fingerling potatoes, pea pods, green beans.
My grandpa brought 2 types of tomato seeds from Germany in WWII. Big German and Beefsteak. We’ve been growin those varieties since then.
Pap grow an almost 7 pound mater once..
Heck I don’t even eat tomatoes but I still grow them every year in remembrance to pap.
That's a great memory. Thanks.
A timely video loaded with excellent tips! thank you:)
Glad it was helpful!
I agree, he seems to put just the right video's out at just the right time :)
Kale, collard, spinach, and other leafy vegetables can be dehydrated, and made into a powder. You can just take a tablespoon of this powder and put it into your soup or your smoothie, and add an extra punch of vitamins that you normally would not get! That’s what I do with the green kale, collards and other greens
Thank you, Scott. That video was very informative. I love the must grow plants you identified. I would add to the list are peppers and sweet peas. I love both.
wow. congratulations on reaching 100,000 subscribers. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experiences with us. i have been gardening for a while and still learn so much from you. thanks.
OMG i didn't notice till you said something about it. Good for him. So happy for him. He is easily my fav channel and that says a lot because i have several great channels that i follow. Congrats Gardener Scott. Very well done my friend. Your awesome.
Thank you so much!
ONIONS should of made the list in my opinion but i am not as experienced as scott.
I have a potato tower going now and it seems to be doing great. I plan on growing multiple towers next year. green beans are my favorite to grow. I love going out in the moring with my daughter and picking green beans. Lost year we had a late freeze and the only things i did great with last year it was Tomato and garlic
I read several comments about bitter cucumbers. For me (northern Mississippi), that happens when the weather just gets too hot. This year I’m planning to trellis them against a fence that gets afternoon shade. I’m hoping they’ll be happier. My grandfather told me years ago that if you cut the ends off the cucumber and wipe each end of the cucumber with the pieces from the opposite ends, it won’t be bitter anymore. 🤷🏻♀️
The variety of cucumbers also really defines the bitterness level. I haven't found any non hybrid seeds, but there are a couple of hybrid varieties that are definitely free of bitterness :D
We would scrub those ends round n round until there was a nice foamy ring.. can't say it helped a lot..
You have to pick cucumbers when they are small. They get bitter as the past the ripe stage.
Hello!
I love Your channel! Thanks for your work!! :)
Sunchokes, josta, fig, juneberry are my favourites, worth mentioning. Easy to grow, fast, productive.
Cheers from Hungary!
Excellent Video! Dehydrating tomatoes with fresh basil, oregano, garlic, and sea salt is a good way to make tomatoes last a long time. We love kale too! Kale salad with olive oil massaged in and then nutritional yeast, finely chopped cashews, lemon juice and salt. So great. Can't wait for my very own organic food to grow in my backyard!
Thanks!
I love growing peppers
This year, I'm planting tomatoes, peppers, basil, carrots, peas, beets, kale, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, radishes in my garden bed. Also will have potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes and onions in pots. Subscribed to your channel!
That sounds like a great variety of plants. Welcome to the channel!
My top crops are 1] peppers, 2] tomatoes, 3] basil, 4] zucchini, 5] butternut squash, 6] berries, 7] carrots, 8] cucumbers, 9] bok choy, 10] eggplant.
I'm surprised he didn't mention the taste and many uses of fresh herbs. They're relatively easy to grow, expensive to buy, and attract pollinators.
Love your informative videos! Yes, tomatoes are my favorite to grow. Maybe I will try and grow kale next year--I like the idea of kale chips!
I've found that some of the easiest things to grow are the most expensive at the store bc those plants are difficult to harvest mechanically. Berries, tomatoes, peppers etc. I grow lots of herbs especially tea herbs and medicinal herbs, supplements and herbal teas are pretty pricy.
Yum! Tomatoes are hard to kill,
I thought my sisters planted tomatoes in our mothers garden but it turned out I buried kitchen scraps which contained dead tomatoes.
Next thing yu know there's a tomato jungle growing on the shady fence line .
And the interesting thing is I buried the dead tomato compost so deep yet the delicious tomatoes that grew spoke Chinese!
Gardener Scott: The Dude of gardening
I think peas should make the list. The don't take much space if you use a trellis, and I love to go out and pick a few for a salad or stir fry. Peppers as well. We grow banana peppers in containers and bring them in when it gets cold to extend the season. I don't particularly like them when they are green, so I let them get red.