Container Gardening: The Best 16 Plants for Your Home Garden
All this ice and snow got you thinking about planning your springtime garden? Whether you are planting in the ground or undertaking container gardening, these 16 plants will be easy to grow. Most of them grow in a range of climate zones and will do well in ground in even in small containers. Choose plants that you want to eat and that will add variety and joy to your life. Always choose organic plants and organic pest control methods when possible, and delight in fresh, as-local-as-possible produce.
Best 16 Plants for Your Home Garden
- Pumpkins: Choose your favorite squashes or pumpkins (really the same thing, just depends on the region where it’s grown!); they need some space to climb but will produce prolifically.
- Basil: One of our favorite herbs! Not only is basil super beautiful and found in a myriad of colors and flavors, it’s an excellent addition to all you meals. Try making homemade pesto or this SuperGREEN salad with your homegrown basil.
- Ginger and Turmeric: Not only are ginger and turmeric super potent medicainals (read about the health benefits of ginger and turmeric), they are gorgeous plants that can be grown with little space. Add some tropical flair to your garden with these plants! Read here some tips for growing ginger easily!
- Garlic: Yes, the stinking rose, can be grown in your garden! Read here some tips and planting guides for home grown garlic.
- Lettuce: Lettuce is infinitely versatile and with so many varieties of this ubiquitous salad green it’s hard not to love it! Lettuce is one of the 15 plants that can grow in the shade too, to help you make the most of your garden.
- Peas: few things are cuter than pea shoots! These climbers will produce edible shoots and pods in the early spring. Use in salad or as garnishes.
- Kale: It’s not secret that kale is my most-loved vegetable for the kitchen and the garden. Even in the smallest plots I’ve been able to grow prolific amount of this hearty brassica plant. Lacinato, curly and Red Russion are the most common varieties, but experiment with them all. And here our favorite kale recipes if you need some cooking inspiration!
- Thyme: This fragrant herb is great for newbie gardeners. It’s a perennial, drought tolerant, hardy, and endlessly easy to use in the kitchen. This is a plant best purchased rather than grown from seed, and works in pots or in the ground. Use the tiny flavorful leaves in soups, salads, eggs or in fancy homemade cocktails.
- Collards: like kale, collards are in the brassica family and are wonderfully nutritious and delicious in the kitchen. Use them lightly sauteed anywhere you’d use kale or spinach, or use the leaves whole as healthy wraps for your raw meals.
- Parsley: Often used as a garnish, parsely is in fact a deliciously nutritious herb that can be a main ingredient in your salads, juices and meals. In fact, it’s one of the few herbs that helps detoxify your body naturally, so get growing today! It’s hardy and easy to grow, and it’s a lovely plant to have around!
- Radish: Radish might not be everyone’s favorite vegetable, but once you see these beauties grow it will be hard to resist. Bright pink, red, purple or white radishes and light greed edible leaves ensure that you’ll fall in love with them all over again!
- Passionfruit: This tropical beauty may not fruit in all climates, but it’s curly-cue tendrils and rapid growing rate will please most any gardener!
- Nasturtiums: a edible leaf and edible flower means nasturtiums are a love addition to your edible garden.
- Chives: A softer, sweeter member of the onion family, chives grow 6-8 inches high and have a very mild onion or garlic flavor. As a bonus they produce cute flowers are small mauve-pink and grown into a ball-like shape at the end of a strong stem rising above the plant’s leaves.
- Sage: Another beautifully fragrant herb, sage is great is soups, pastas and, if you are feeling classy, cooked in some brown butter. It’s strongly flavored and a little goes a long way. Easy to grow, nearly pest resistant and pretty!
- Mint: Who can argue with the fresh, clean flavor of mint? It has a tendency to creep around the whole garden, so do keep an eye on it. Make mint tea if there is a mint takeover!
Green Living Ideas is part of a funny project that allows bloggers all over the world to be involved in a large-scale Bingo game. To that end, we’ve created this adorable little video and the subsequent list of our favorite plants for your home garden to inspire you to get your green on!
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