These popular garden vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers are easy to grow and cook. If you are new to gardening, take a look at this list as you plan your vegetable garden.
You’ll find warm-season and cool-season vegetables and fruits, herbs, and edible flowers in separate categories in this post.
Take a look, and choose your favorites!
Also, don’t miss the Tips section below and Gardening Tips sprinkled throughout the post.
Tips for Choosing What to Grow in Your Vegetable Garden
- What vegetables do you often buy at the store? Grow what you like to eat.
- Herbs require very little care and often are pricey to buy fresh at the store. Grow more of these and dry them to save money on your grocery bill.
- Limited on space? Look for vegetable varieties labeled “bush” or “compact.” These will take up less space.
- Fruiting vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, beans) are often the most productive and prolific.
- Smaller cherry tomatoes and both mini and hot peppers ripen fastest and produce the most.
- Growing vegetables for kids? I have a curated list of my kids’ favorite garden vegetables here.
40 Easy Garden Vegetables and Fruits for Beginners
For ease of reference, I’ve divided this list into warm-season and cool-season vegetables. Annual vegetables can be grown in two basic seasons: warm or cool.
Gardening Tip: Be sure to check the plant tag or back of the seed packet for the spacing requirements of your plants before you buy them. This way your plants won’t be too crowed and will have plenty of room to grow to their full potential.
The warm season begins when temperatures are steadily in the range of 65°-90°F (18°-32°C).
The cool season (which may include both spring and fall in a four-season location, or just fall and winter in temperate climates) begins when air temperatures are around 50°F (10°C) and above. Some seeds can germinate in soil temperatures as low as 40°F (4°C).
Check your plant tags and seed packets for more accurate information on the ideal conditions for your plants.
20 Warm Season Vegetables and Fruits
These vegetables love the warmth of summer and need full sun (6+ hours) to thrive. Plant any of these vegetables and fruits after the danger of frost has passed and the garden soil is nice and warm.
- Tomatoes
- Cucumbers
- Bell Peppers (or Sweet Peppers)
- Hot Peppers (Jalapeños, Habañeros, Tabasco, etc.)
- Eggplant
- Zucchini (or Courgette)
- Summer Squash
- String/Green Beans (Bush and Pole varieties)
- Dried Beans (Pinto, Black, Kidney, Lima, etc.)
- Sweet Corn
- Watermelon
- Cantaloupe (or Muskmelons)
- Honeydew melons
- Okra
- Sweet Potatoes
- Pumpkins
- Tomatillos
- Winter Squash (Butternut, Delicata, Acorn, Hubbard, etc.)
- Carrots (prefers to germinate in cool weather, but will grow in warm)
- Fennel (bulb and fronds are edible)
20 Cool Season Vegetables and Fruits
Cool-season vegetables love the cold, crisp temperatures of spring and fall. These plants can tolerate light frosts, and some (carrots, radishes, kale, collards, broccoli, for example) can become sweeter after a frost. Vegetables like these grow quickly when it’s cool and tend to become bitter or go to seed when the weather warms up.
I’ve included more tips on growing vegetables in the fall in this post.
Gardening Tip: Plant cool-season vegetables as soon as the soil has thawed in the spring. Pull them out once they go to seed or begin tasting bitter. Add a bit of granular fertilizer to the soil and plant your warm-season vegetables immediately after.
- Lettuce (loose-leaf or heading)
- Spinach
- Kale
- Carrots
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Cabbage (Napa, Savoy, Green, Red)
- Radishes
- Peas (Sweet Peas, Snap Peas, Snow Peas)
- Onions (from sets or seeds; seeds require more time to grow)
- Garlic (typically planted in the fall to grow full bulbs; can be planted in very early spring but may not bulb up)
- Chard (Swiss Chard)
- Arugula
- Brussels Sprouts
- Turnips
- Beets
- Leeks
- Mustard Greens
- Scallions (Green Onions)
- Collard Greens
18 Herbs to Grow in Your Garden
Herbs are easy to grow and thrive in almost any climate. Fresh herbs add so much flavor to homecooked meals and can be dried in a warm, dry place in the house to be used in the kitchen as well.
Depending on your growing zone, some of the herbs on this list will be perennial for you, meaning they will come back year after year without needing to be replanted. This is also a great way to save money on both gardening and cooking!
Many herbs can be dried for tea. If you’re interested in growing herbs for tea, you can find my 5 favorite plants for herbal tea here.
Gardening Tip: If you don’t have a lot of space to garden, try growing herbs in pots or tubs. Different herbs like basil, chives, and thyme can be planted in the same pot if the pot is large enough. Check the tags on the plant or the back of the seed packet for growing requirements.
- Basil (pinch off flowers for the best basil flavor and bushiest growth)
- Mint (Peppermint, Spearmint, Apple, Chocolate… there’s lots of varieties to choose from)
- Parsley
- Rosemary
- Thyme
- Oregano
- Cilantro (or Coriander; allow to flower and go to seed, then collect the seeds to use as coriander spice)
- Chives
- Sage
- Dill (Dill seeds are also edible)
- Lavender (Spanish, French, English; may be perennial in certain zones)
- Tarragon
- Marjoram
- Savory (Summer and Winter varieties)
- Lemon Balm
- Chervil
- Stevia
- Fennel (fronds and bulb are edible)
Gardening Tip: Plant mint and lemon balm in their own containers. These tend to spread aggressively and take over small garden patches.
17 Edible Flowers for Your Vegetable Garden
Caution: Note that in general, not all flowers are edible. Do your research before eating a flower and make sure you’ve identified the flower correctly before eating it. Also beware of flowers that have been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides such as those coming directly from the garden center. It’s best to only eat flowers you’ve grown yourself, preferably from seed, so you know what conditions the plants were raised in.
I love growing flowers in my vegetable garden, and I find that they are absolutely necessary to get the best production out of my plants! You can find out why in my post here.
This list includes edible flowers you can grow alongside your vegetables in the garden. Many of these flowers also would look beautiful cut and displayed in a vase. I’ve noted which flowers grow best in cool season conditions, but the rest will do fine in warm weather.
(Also don’t forget, squash and zucchini flowers are edible, too!)
Gardening Tip: Pick a few edible flowers to garnish salads and drinks. Freeze flowers or petals in ice cube trays with water to make beautiful floral ice cubes.
- Nasturtiums
- Marigolds
- Pansies (grows best in cool season)
- Violas (grows best in cool season)
- Calendula (Pot Marigold)
- Borage
- Lavender
- Chive Blossoms
- Rose (perennial; generally the ones with the best smell have the best taste as well)
- Zinnias (not the best tasting, but one of the prettiest!)
- Bee Balm (or Monarda)
- Chamomile (grows best in cool season)
- Sunflower
- Dianthus (Carnation; grows best in cool season)
- Hibiscus (also called Roselle)
- Anise Hyssop
- Bachelor’s Buttons (or Cornflower)
Enjoy Growing Your Vegetable Garden
I hope these lists give you a good starting point for choosing what to grow in your vegetable garden. My biggest tip for new gardeners is to grow what you are excited about and what you like to eat.
If you’ve never had a homegrown vegetable, you are in for a real treat. Freshly harvested veggies taste the best when first picked and when they’ve been allowed to reach full maturity before picking.
No matter what you decide to grow in your vegetable garden, I hope you enjoy getting out there with your plants and have fun watching them grow and produce.