You’ve seen your friends get on the vegetable gardening bandwagon or you tried to grow your first garden last year during the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine and bit off more than you could chew. Even if this is your first time considering a summer vegetable garden, we’ve got a simple step-by-step plan with 3 easy-to-grow summer vegetables so you can try your hand at gardening this year. A beginner summer vegetable garden is a great way to enjoy the beautiful weather outdoors and get delicious fresh produce for your table.
To help take the overwhelm out of your first time, we’ve created a printable 4-week garden plan to help you stay on track for your first time. Up for a bit more of a challenge? We have some suggestions to take your vegetable gardening skills to the next level.
(Some of these recommendations may be more ideal for those living in southerly climates. Pest and disease pressures vary by location, plus temperatures vary across the country. Ask your local farming and gardening friends to learn what grows easy in your area.)
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Be kind to yourself. Start Simple!
Set yourself up for success by starting simply your first year. Prevent overwhelm by limiting how many new crops you try to grow at once. It’s not easy even for a seasoned gardener to keep everything organized while trying to manage weeds and preserve your summer vegetables.
Summer Garden Considerations
There are two things to keep in mind when planning your beginner summer vegetable garden. First, summer vegetables like warmer weather and won’t survive chilly nights or a frost. So be sure to check your local last frost date before planting any summer plants outdoors. Nothing sadder than your garden dying overnight in one fell swoop!
Lastly, plan ahead how you are going to water your vegetable plants. While tomatoes may love the heat of summer, they need plenty of water as well. Is there a water spigot nearby your garden patch? Do you have a hose and sprayer nozzle? Planning to go on a vacation? Make sure you have someone willing to water while you’re away or invest in a water timer to turn on the sprinkler or soaker hose while you’re away.
Supplies
- Tomato plant(s)
- Green bean seeds
- Cucumber seeds
- Trowel
- Trellis, tomato cages, or other support
Prep the garden
First things first, you’ll need to prepare the location you plan to grow. Whether that is tilling up a section of the yard, building raised beds, or buying some large pots for a container garden. You’ll need somewhere to plant your garden. Most summer garden plants love sunshine and lots of it. So pick a sunnier portion of your yard or patio to devote to your garden. This is a great activity to begin when the last frost date is a week or two out and the weather is gorgeous and you don’t want to be inside. A great way to get your hands in the dirt without risking tender young plants to a surprise late frost.
For more details on spring garden prep, check out Farmer Nathan’s post on preparing the garden for spring.
Green beans
A great beginner summer vegetable garden plant has to be the green bean. The same seed you probably sprouted back in 3rd grade science class. They are happy to grow even in less than ideal Carolina clay and also add nitrogen back into the soil. What’s not to love?
Selecting Seeds
While browsing the seed packets at the store or in the seed catalog, you will see some overarching categories. Drying beans are grown to shell (think black beans and kidney beans). Green beans are grown to eat the pods. Among the green beans there are 2 families–bush and pole.
Just like the name implies, bush beans grow only a foot or so tall and bush out. Pole beans are vining and will send out runners to climb up a trellis, fence, teepee, or anything else it can grab onto. Bush beans don’t require trellising, but you do have to get on your knees or squat down to harvest the bush beans. Mostly it’s just a matter of personal preference between pole or bush. From there, there are so many varieties to choose from. Green, yellow or purple pods? Round pods or flat pods? So many options and flavors to explore!
Planting
After the risk of frost has passed is the perfect time to start planting beans. For bush beans, plant them about 1 deep about 2 inches apart in the row. Space about 2-3 feet in between each row. For pole beans, plant the seeds about 1 inch deep and 3-4 inches apart either next to whatever trellis you plan on them climbing.
If you’d like a continuous supply of green beans all summer long, stagger your planting. Every other week plant another row of beans. That way when the first plants are dying off, you’ll have new ones just starting to produce.
Troubleshooting
For the most part, green beans are super low maintenance, but disease and pests do show up. Here are a few of the most common issues and links to solutions:
Next level
Fresh green beans are delicious, but how about some sweet corn on the cob! As a native plant in the Americas, it is happy to grow just about anywhere.
Cucumbers
Cucumbers hold a special place in my summer garden heart. They were one of the first vegetables I liked as a picky-eating kid, but only if they were fresh from the garden. Not the flavorless ones from the grocery store.
Seed vs. plant?
You’ll sometimes see cucumber plants at the local garden center, but they are just as easy to grow from seed as well. When picking a variety, there are two categories–slicing and pickling. Pickling cucumbers are shorter than slicing cucumbers and often have thinner skins, but you can eat both fresh or pickle them despite their names.
Planting
If you are directly sowing the seeds into the ground, you will want to wait until the soil has warmed up after your last frost date. Poke the seeds into the soil about 1 inch deep and space 18-36 inches apart. If you have the ground space, they will happily sprawl. If you have a smaller area or are growing in a container, they are happy to climb up a trellis or teepee to save space.
Troubleshooting
Depending on your climate, you may encounter some of the following. While I haven’t had any one thing kill of my cucumber plants, sometimes you have to share a few bites with the bugs:
Next level
If you’re up for a challenge, summer squash (crookneck, zucchini, patty pan) are a great place to start. Scenario A, you’ll be begging people to take zucchini off your hands and trying weird squash recipes for weeks. Scenario B, you’ll be battling pests for a few precious squash. Either way, still a challenge to grow your gardening skills! Read up on the bugs in your area and pick a variety that is resistant. And if squash thrives in your area? Better start collecting zucchini recipes!
Tomatoes
Tomatoes. The king of the summer vegetable garden! Whether sweet cherry tomatoes or juicy slicers, you can’t get much better than a ripe tomato off the vine in the middle of summer. Plus they preserve great freezing or canning to enjoy all winter long as well. As kings of the garden, they do like a bit more hands-on time than the green beans, so I’ll write a bit more on their particular preferences. Despite a little more maintenance, it is still a great addition to the beginner summer vegetable garden.
Start with a plant, not a seed
Tomatoes take some advance planning to grow from seed, so if this is your first year I’d recommend picking up a plant from the local nursery, garden center, or farmer’s market to jumpstart your garden. Especially if you’re reading this after your last frost date. Zero shame in purchasing a plant start! We do a combination of both as some seeds are just tricky to start on the window sill. If you happen to be reading this in the winter, here’s our blog post on how to start seeds.
When looking at the baby tomato plant options, you’ll probably see the words “determinate” or “indeterminate” on the labels. This lingo is letting you know what to expect from the plant.
- Determinate = bush
- Grows to certain size, ripens fruit at about same time, minimal support
- Indeterminate = vine
- Keeps growing until frost, fruits throughout the season, needs trellising & pruning
If you’re growing in a small space or a container, determinate tomatoes may perform better for you. If you’ve got a little more space and a trellis, indeterminate tomatoes may be a great choice. Just remember you’re signing up for pruning with indeterminate tomatoes!
Planting and Pruning
Tomatoes have the magical property of growing roots all along their stem. So when it comes to planting, plant it fairly deep to encourage extra root growth. As a rule of thumb, about 3-4 inches of the stem on your average garden center tomato plant above the existing roots. For more on planting transplants, check out this blog post with more tips and tricks.
If you’re planting determinate tomatoes, go ahead and place the cage or stake in the ground when you plant your tomato so as to not disturb the tomato plant’s roots later. From there, about once a week help put any new branches through the cage or tie to stake for support when the fruit starts coming in.
If you’re planting indeterminate tomatoes, go ahead and set up your trellising system of choice. We’ve done hog panels and T-posts for a few years. Or just some stakes and twine will do as well. Just something to be able to tie the vine onto as it grows. Also with indeterminate varieties, you’ll need to keep on top of pruning or you’ll end up with a jungle! (speaking from experience here). What to prune? I’ll include a photo, but as the vine grows, between the branch and the vine, essentially the start of another baby plant will pop up. Pinch them off if they are small or use a pair of pruners to snip them. Just don’t prune the very top growing tip of your tomato.
Troubleshooting
We can always hope everything is 100% smooth-sailing, but disease does show up. Here are a few of the most common issues and links to solutions:
- Blossom-end Rot
- Tomatoes are rotting before ripening. Solution is a bit of calcium
- Where’s the fruit?
- It’s been 50+ days and you have lots of leaves and no fruit? You may have a lot of nitrogen in your soil. Try adding potassium.
- Blight Prevention
- Keep the tomato plant’s lower leaves trimmed up off the ground. Soil-borne bacteria or fungus often starts down below.
- For more tomato disease help, check out your local extension service’s website.
Next level: Peppers
All this tomato talk is old hat? Try some peppers. Spicy, sweet, or savory they have a lot of flavor to offer!
Conclusion
We hope you have a successful and thriving beginner summer vegetable garden this year. May the pests be few and the harvest bountiful! For more gardening tips, check out these blog posts.