Ever feel like there’s so much you want to grow that you can’t figure out what to plant first? Before I ever had a garden of my own, before I even graduated high school, I became obsessed with gardening and designed my dream garden.

I went completely insane in-depth on this plan. It was on graph paper, with a color key code and a compass to know which direction in which to build it so the plants would get the correct amount of sun/shade. Oh yes, each plant had an assigned space with square footage, some plants -the invasive ones- were in containers, shade-loving plants placed underneath the shade of the fruit trees. *sigh*

Alas, it is still only a dream. But I hold out hope for someday. 

Anyone under the age of 40 in California knows the struggle to find affordable housing, let alone being able to purchase an actual piece of land. Turns out that was the real dream right there. 

Of course, even in rentals and apartments people are still able to find ways to have plants, or a kitchen window herb garden in containers. They call it “urban gardening.”

I never did quite figure out how to do it, mostly because i never lived in the right sort of rentals.  

One place was snowy, so no plants there. One place  I technically did have a garden that I tended to, but it wasn’t mine and I didn’t get to make the decisions on any of it. One place, my last apartment, was completely shaded and I was never home and no plant lived longer than a week. That was where I learned to appreciate fake plants. 

When I lived with my parents, they had a lovely, huge yard that once my 4-H project animals were cleared out my mom filled with ducks and chickens and garden beds. But I was not allowed to do things to her garden without permission, except buy her more plants. And that is really my favorite part anyway, so I’m not complaining! 

This is the first year I have had a garden of my own. It was supposed to be last year but I never got it built, Oops.

And even though several things have frustrated me this year -the price of soil, the wind breaking my plants, the mice, squirrels and cows eating them- I love having a garden. I love coming home from work and watering my plants. I love spending time with my hands in the soil. I even love standing out in the sunshine, sweating buckets and getting a sunburn while I prune and pull weeds. (I do wear sunscreen Mom! I’m just that pale.) Of course I love buying more plants. I need another garden space already and I haven’t even finished the first one!

Plants grow so much more quickly than animals and it’s so incredibly satisfying to watch them change each day. I like to take photos of my garden while I’m watering so I can look back on their growth progress, and to keep track of the ones that get destroyed by naughty animals. 

Here’s a list of things that are good for first year gardeners to grow: 

Herbs! Herbs are perennials and so you only have to plant them once and they’ll keep coming back year after year. Of course, once they flower the leaves become too bitter to use in recipes, but if you just keep trimming the flower buds off them, they’ll keep bushing up. 

Lavender,  mint, basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage, dill, chives, and so many more!

There are so many varieties of each type of plant and I wish I could plant them all. Just be sure to plant your mint in containers and keep an eye on it because mint (all varieties) is invasive and even though it smells so good, it’ll choke out everything else you try to plant. 

Fun fact: Cilantro and Coriander are the same plant. Cilantro refers to the leaves and coriander is the dried seeds. For some reason, only people in the United States ever call it Cilantro, everyone else just calls the whole thing Coriander.

Tomatoes! Everyone grows tomatoes and you can too! There are so many varieties of tomatoes and even people who don’t like to eat tomatoes can’t seem to resist growing them. My grandfather has been known to eat tomatoes like you’d eat an apple, but with salt sprinkled on top. I won’t eat them plain but I like them in recipes. 

My favorite variety is the Sun Gold, which I discovered by accident two years ago while buying one of everything the store had for my mom’s garden. They’re small and orange, smaller than a cherry tomato and they’re sweet. 

I also love the heirloom varieties of tomatoes. My garden this year has a Black Krim, a Purple Cherokee, and a Green Zebra. My harvest is sure to be colorful! Just don’t forget to plant the classic Roma tomatoes! They’re the best for salsa and pasta sauce recipes. Don’t forget your tomato cages, and make sure you’re pruning your plants for maximum growth and production. 

Fun fact: Tomatoes purchased in the grocery store are picked before they’re ripe so they’re still hard and don’t get smashed during transport to the store. They use some ethylene gas to ripen them enough to be sold. 

Squash of any variety. Everyone with a garden is always giving away tons of zucchini. Pro tip: only plant one zucchini plant. It doesn’t matter how much you think you like zucchini. Unless you’re baking zucchini bread to sell, you won’t eat that much of it. If you end up eating your entire harvest and still wish you had more (I’m sure a neighbor will have some) you can plant a second one next spring. Last year we planted 4 zucchini plants (got a little overzealous) and we were sharing with seven other families, and half of it still went bad on the vine. 

If you don’t harvest your squash bounty, it will reseed and come back next year. Or if you throw out your old pumpkins from Halloween into the yard in December, next year you’ll end up with a lovely pumpkin vine in the middle of your lawn. My mom’s garden is full of volunteer squash plants of several different varieties. 

Squash come in so many shapes and sizes and colors, there must be a recipe that you think you’d enjoy that would use your harvest. Butternut squash soup in the fall? Spaghetti squash? Zucchini with chopped onions and garlic doused in butter, wrapped in tin foil and grilled on the bbq with some chicken and asparagus and sliced, ice cold watermelon? My mouth is watering now. 

And speaking of melons, no garden is complete without them. Watermelon, cantaloupe or honeydew? You really can’t go wrong. Who doesn’t like melons? Crazy people, that’s who. Just make sure you give them plenty of space to spread out, or give them a trellis to crawl up. The same goes with the squash and any cucumbers you might plant. 

Green beans are another good year one plant. You’ll get more green beans off one plant than you know what to do with. My family eats so many green beans. Every family get together we have at least three different green bean dishes. My sister has developed a green bean allergy in the last couple years, which must suck. I didn’t even know that was something people could be allergic to. Like the rest, these need something to hang onto. Pole beans, for instance, want to wrap upwards around a pole. 

If you’re in your forever home, or even just your forever-for-now home, I definitely recommend planting some fruit trees. Pick your favorites, obviously. Know that some varieties require two trees to be planted because they have male and female trees, like cherries. If your neighbor already has cherries and you live pretty close you might be able to get away with just having one. Just make sure to double check with your friendly local nursery that you’re getting the correct type of tree to produce fruit with the tree your neighbor has. 

Personally, I love apple trees the most. Apple blossoms smell so incredibly lovely in the spring. Growing up, in my backyard we had two apple trees. The fruit it produced was tiny, marble sized green apples that we never ate because we didn’t ever do anything for the tree to make it produce edible apples, they always had worm holes. But we did use them! ...for batting practice. 

Yes, my brothers and sister and I would go outside in the summer, armed with 5 gallon buckets and collect as many apples off the ground as we could. Didn’t matter what condition they were in. Then we’d get the apple-hitting bat (never use your good bat for apple hitting. It’ll ruin it with the sticky ickiness and it never comes off. I think it ended up peeling the paint off the bat eventually) and we’d soft toss them to each other. It was so much fun. And so satisfying to hit the little apple and see/hear/feel it explode. It did require an evening bath afterwards because you’d end up with sticky apple pieces in your hair. 

Nectarines and peaches and plums come in a solid second on my favorite tree list after apples. But lemons, limes and avocado trees are also on my planting list. My church pastor told me a funny story a couple years ago about how he’d bought one lemon and one lime tree for his backyard several years before. And they went to use the limes and they were terrible. So sour, not at all that wonderful lime flavor. And they kept trying to use them, year after year and they just never tasted like the ones from the store. Until finally they gave up harvesting the limes and let them stay on the tree. Until they turned yellow. They’d bought two lemon trees. I think about that story all the time, and it never fails to crack me up.

But of course, each garden will be unique to those who are planting it, because we don’t all like the same things. If you really like carrots, and your family eats a bunch of them, try planting those! If nobody in your family will touch a tomato, don’t plant any! If you’d rather have a flower garden to have beautiful vases full of bouquets, then plant accordingly.

Happy planting!

XOXO

HH