What to Grow in a Garden | Simple List of What I’m Growing in my Garden

Who is growing a Garden this year? Ever sit down and think about what to grow in a garden while you’re planning it out?

I absolutely love gardening.  Last year we built a garden with 8 raised beds and 4 trellises and this year we expanded to add 4 more raised beds and 2 more trellises. 

The DIY trellis was MUCH easier than you would think and I’ll be doing a post on that soon but today I wanted to talk about everything I’m planting in my garden.  

If you didn’t know this about me already, I’m actually very interested in Homesteading and I have a whole Instagram account dedicated to it here! 

I’m also ridiculously into rare types of heirloom seeds and because of that I have each kind of plant listed (for the garden nerds out there like me!). Otherwise you can see the bolded items below for my list!

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Why do I like to Grow my own food

1. It’s fun:  I love the whole process.  I start by choosing what I want to grow and getting a general layout of the beds.  Then I start the seeds and up-pot them once they are big enough and finally put in the garden and harvest when they are ready!  It’s just fun for me and I actually find it very relaxing.  
2. I like KNOWING what went into my food:  We typically buy organic foods to begin with, but having your own garden takes that to a whole new level because you literally have complete control, right down to the organic heirloom non-GMO seeds we buy! We don’t use “conventional” pest deterrents and fertilizer but instead rely on organic material, compost and specific plants to plant together to accomplish those goals in a natural way. 
3. The kids can Learn and be involved:  I love making everyday things a learning experience for my kids in some way shape or form.  Growing your own garden is no exception to that.  My kids get to pick out a couple plants they want and we will grow them. They know it’s their plant and they typically run straight to it when we go out to the garden.  They also love picking the vegetables with me! 

What do I do with all of the food?

Aside from eat it, we also can and or pickle a lot of foods.  For instance I’m choosing to grow a tremendous amount of tomatoes.  That’s because we use them to make marinara sauce, salsa, pizza sauce and ketchup.  The ketchup is going to be a new one for us this year (my son is obsessed with ketchup so I want to start making our own).  We also use a lot of pickles so cucumbers is another item we grow a ton of. 

If we can’t keep up with canning then we will either give it to friends and family or feed it to our chickens,  they always get excited when we give it to them!

What to Grow in a Garden – What I’m Growing

I’ve become very picky with what to grow in a garden because space is a hot commodity in almost any garden.  How I have it set up this year I’m trellising a lot of things and growing my tomatoes up stakes. The picture above is from last year when I started growing my tomatoes up stakes.  I also plan on strategically planting some vining plants with larger fruit (like pumpkins and watermelon) on the edge of the raised bed to let the vines grow out of the raised bed and onto the ground to maximize space.  

If you’re interested in starting seeds you can find some great started packs here on Amazon. If you’re more interested in the unique types of heirloom seeds you can find those a few different places like Etsy, MI Gardner, and Baker Creek Seeds.

Beans

1. Dragon’s Tongue Bush Bean
2. Romano Purpiat Bush Bean
3. Kentucky Wonder Pole Bean
4. Chinese Red Noodle Pole Bean

Peas

1. Green Arrow
2. Lincoln
3. Sugar Ann Snap Pea
4. Snow Pea

Watermelon

1. Sugar Baby Bush
2. Strawberry Watermelon
3. Beni kodima

Melon

1. Golden Honeymoon
2. Cantaloupe
3. Bitter Melon

Squash

1. Boston Marrow
2. Desi
3. Spaghetti Squash 
4. Zucchini (Fordhook) 

Tomatoes

1. Black Cherry
2. Atomic Grape
3. Amish Paste
4. Orange Icicle
5. Striped Roma
6. Pink Oxheart
7. Tappy’s Heritage
8. Abe Lincoln
9. Cherokee Purple
10. Dr. Wyches Yellow

Peppers

1. Keystone Giant
2. Big Red (Sweet)
3. Yolo Wonder (Sweet)
4. Golden California Wonder
5. Lady Bell 
6. Lilac Bell
7. Mini Chocolate Bell 
8. Banana Pepper
9. Jalapeno

Egg Plant

1. Long Purple 

Cucumbers 

1. Straight Eight
2. Chicago Pickling
3. Mexican Sour Gherkin
4. Double Yeild
5. Miniture White

Carrots

1. Kyoto Red
2. Purple Dragon
3. Black Nebula

Onions

1. Ailsa Craig
2. Globo
3. White Sweet Spanich
4. Ruby Red

Celery

1. Chinese Pink 

Corn

1. Dakota Ivory
2. Atomic Orange
3. Hopi Blue

Herbs

1. Dill
2. Cilantro
3. Sage
4. Parsley
5. Oregano
6. Thyme
7. Rosemary
8. Spearmint
9. Peppermint

Basil – SO much Basil!

1. Spicy Globe Basil
2. Mammoth Basil
3. Lemon Basil
4. Sweet Basil
5. Licorice Basil
6. Cinnamon Basil

Salad Greens (this has its own bed)

1. Marvel Lettuce
2. Jericho Lettuce
3. Parris Island Cos Lettuce
4. Little gem butterhead Lettuce
5. Kale – Dazzling Blue
6. Choy – Yellow heart winter
7. Amaranth – Red Garnet
8. Mustard – Red Giant
9. Spinach – Giant Winter
10. Spinach – Salad Select
11. Strawberry Spinach 

Brussel Sprouts (in the Fall Garden)

1. Long Island Improved
2. Red Rubine

Sunflowers

1. Velvet Queen
2. Autumn Beauty

What a List of what to grow in a garden!

There you have it! The seed collection I have is quite extensive at the moment because for nearly every category I had types that I didn’t even start because I knew space would be an issue. Like my tomatoes, I have substantially more types of tomatoes than just the 10 listed.

I’m interested if you’ve ever heard of some of these varieties? please let me know in the comments!

Be sure to follow along on my Homestead instagram because I will post a lot of my garden stories onto that account.