Choosing What to Grow

Once you have an idea of how much room you have to grow and when to plant your garden, it’s time to choose what you want to grow!  

What you can grow depends on what time of year you are starting your garden. If you are growing plants indoors in containers, you can grow any time of year as long as your plants continuously have enough sunlight. If you are growing plants in outdoor containers or in the ground, you will need to look up which crops you can plant at this time of year.  
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Generally, if the plant has enough time to mature before the fall frost date, you can grow it.  ​

However, certain frost resistant plants prefer cooler weather and need to be planted outdoors earlier in the spring, such as peas, lettuce, and radishes. If cool weather plants are forced to grow in hot weather, they will bolt, or grow seeds in flowers instead of producing food that you can harvest. Here is a list of early spring vegetables. Some vegetables do better if grown in the fall.  

What you can plant also depends on the amount of sunlight the area(s) in which you will be growing your plants receives daily. On a sunny day when you're at home, count how many hours of sunlight the place gets. If it gets at least 6 hours, it's considered "full sun"; if it gets at least 4 hours, it's "partial sun"; and if it gets less than 4 hours, it's "shade". You should pick your plants based on the amount of sunlight they prefer.  

If you are a first-time gardener, I recommend keeping it simple and choosing a handful of vegetables, fruits, or herbs that you really enjoy or use often in your cooking. You might pick a fun theme, such as a pizza or salsa garden (2 tomato plants and 1 jalapeño plant will provide fresh salsa for the entire summer). If you want to stick to some easy plants for beginners, I recommend planting beans, cucumbers, or mesclun lettuce.

Don't plant more than you can handle. Even a small garden provides a good amount of produce and a lot of mental health benefits. It's easy to plant too much or too many different kinds of vegetables, become overwhelmed, and give up, so start out slow. Hobby gardening is supposed to be more enjoyable than stressful! 

The next post will go over where to get your plants and seeds.  

If you have any questions or tips to share, please comment below! ​