11 Easy-Care Vegetables Even Beginners Can Enjoy

Have you just taken over a garden, created a new vegetable garden, or would you like to start growing your own vegetables on the balcony?

For the first year, I recommend you to start with herbs and some robust beginner vegetables, which don't have any special requirements, need little care and even thrive on the balcony. For each plant, I give you a few concrete tips. As soon as you have some more experience after the first season, you can expand the assortment bit by bit.

What makes an easy-care vegetable?

Easy-care varieties are not very demanding when it comes to soil conditions, are good neighbours in mixed cultivation and are hardly susceptible to pests. They also don't take short dry spells or heavy rain away from you so quickly.

Some are also insensitive to cold and therefore do not need a pre-culture in the house, but can be sown directly into the bed. Until the harvest, they do not have to be tied up, ambitious or protected.

Easy-care vegetables

So, now that you know what they are, let's take a look at our list of top 11 easy-care vegetables. The list is in no particular order, so the first one is no easier or harder than the last.

Radish​​​​

Radish is relatively undemanding, needing few nutrients and can be sown early in the year. Not only are the roots of the radishes are edible, but also the leaves. You can add them to your salad or make a delicious pesto. In addition to the well-known red round radishes, there are many other colours and shapes, e.g. elongated, white, which are also called icicles because of their shape.

salad

Salad is available in countless colours and shapes. From classic lettuce to red radicchio to purple-brown Roman lettuce - some varieties even have pretty speckles. Some have closed heads, others are elongated or consist of groups of individual leaves. If you use the characteristics of different varieties, you can even grow lettuce all year round, as some, such as radicchio, only unfold their full beauty in the cold. Salad grows very fast and is therefore also very suitable as a gap filler in the bed. If you harvest only single leaves instead of the whole plant, lettuce grows again and again.

spinach​​​​

Spinach is suitable for the summer harvest but is also a good winter vegetable. It is spread over a large area and only needs regular water to grow. It should be sown in spring and autumn, as it tends to shoot in summer (which is what we call premature flowering). Young leaves can be eaten as a salad, older leaves as a vegetable. Since spinach also tastes good to birds, I usually cover it with a light, translucent fleece.

chard

I am surprised that the delicious Mangold is not available in every supermarket, but at least you can find it at most weekly markets. The colourful chard varieties also look so beautiful that they even look great in flower beds.

Mangold hardly needs any care is not susceptible to pests and is also avoided by snails. The same applies to him: if you only harvest the outer leaves once, he will grow back once planted. The plant only dies in severe frost.

My favourite recipe with chard is the Corfiot speciality Tsigarelli because you can add a lot of wild and weeds like Giersch or stinging nettles and eat them instead of weeding.

spring onions​​​​

Once sown, spring onions grow back again and again. The above-ground parts freeze during frost, but the bulb sprouts again in early spring. This makes it the first edible green of the year. In summer they appear with white, edible flowers, which can be used as decoration for salads. Every 3-4 years you should dig out the plant, divide it up and transplant it to a new place.

nasturtium

Now, I know what you're thinking, Nasturtiums aren't vegetables. However, they make a great companion plant for your veggies since they protect them from pests. So, be sure to plant a couple of these babies if you want your vegetable garden to thrive.

Nasturtium is a very fast-growing, climbing plant that looks pretty in the garden and fends off many pests  with its scent. All parts of the plant are edible. The young leaves are slightly spicy, and the flowers decorate hearty dishes but also desserts.  If you let the flowers ripen into seeds, you will get small round balls, which you can even put in brine as a substitute for capers.

pumpkin

A young pumpkin plant lives dangerously, because the smaller the plant and the more tender the leaves are, the greater the danger that snails will attack it. I therefore always prefer pumpkins indoors and only plant them when they have 4-5 large leaves.

The plant needs little care - only regular watering and a lot of nutrients. If you want to grow your pumpkin on the balcony, you need a really big tub that fits into at least one big sack of soil.

courgette​​​​

Hardly any other vegetable plant delivers such reliable yields as courgettes. Therefore only plants two to three specimens in the first year. These will provide you with sufficient supplies. If you have the feeling that the quantity is still too much, then harvest small, tender fruits regularly, which can even be eaten raw. Even the zucchini blossoms are edible - filled with some feta, turned in egg and flour and fried in a pan, these are a delicacy.

bush beans​​​​

Bush beans are among my favourites in the vegetable garden. They are planted in the spring in small groups of 3-4 seeds at a distance of about 20 cm from the next group. Apart from occasional watering, you can leave them more or less to themselves until the harvest. As soon as the first beans are ripe, you should harvest them regularly, as this stimulates the plant to form new flowers again and again.

Jerusalem artichoke

Jerusalem artichoke is a perennial shrub that grows between two and three meters high and is related to the sunflower. It blooms from August to September in bright yellow. Similar to potatoes, the plant forms runners that end in edible tubers. The tubers store the substance inulin, which serves as a nutrient reserve for the plant. I prefer to eat Jerusalem artichokes raw - grated or thinly sliced, they taste deliciously nutty in salads.

Very important if you want to grow Jerusalem artichoke: similar to bamboo, the plant spreads quickly throughout the garden via its runners and is difficult to get rid of. So be sure to put a rhizome barrier around it (a rubber or underground metal barrier that limits its spread) or simply plant it in a large tub.

Potatoes​​​​

For potatoes, you only need enough space and patience. Let the potato seeds germinate from mid-March at a bright window. If that's too cumbersome for you, you can also simply put them as they are in the middle of April with a distance of about 30 cm in well-loosened soil.

In the course of the summer, you should pile up the plants a bit (pull the soil upwards with a hoe from the side to the plant and form a small hill with it). When the potato leaves wither, the tubers are ready for harvesting.

If you grow tomatoes in your garden, be sure to plant them as far apart as possible in order to prevent the herb blight, which is dangerous for the tomatoes, from spreading. You can also grow potatoes in a large pot. You can also try cultivation on the balcony. Just be careful not to water too much, otherwise, the potatoes can rot.

If you want to grow potatoes in a bucket or in a sack, it is best to put 20 cm earth in a container, put 4-5 potatoes in it and pour about 10 cm earth over it. Whenever the potato shoots poke out about 5 cm, you refill the soil. Depending on the variety, you can harvest after about three months.

Final words

So, now you see that cultivating vegetables is not such a daunting task as many make it seem. After reading this article, you should be well on your way to plating your first vegetable garden. If you have any questions or remarks, feel free to leave them down in the comments!