Best and Worst Vegetables to Grow?

By starlight1153 (starlight1153) on January 19, 2014

Some folks are busy planning their flowers beds, and others are busy planning what vegetables that they hope to grow this year. Still, others are even learning how to incorporate veggies in with their blooming flowers to safe space and still have fresh produce to eat.

To maybe help some other folks out new to vegetable gardening or those wanting to expand their vegetable gardens, and possibly add more fresh veggies to the food table, please share your thoughts and experiences on the following two questions.

1. What is or was your favorite vegetable to grow and why?

2. What is or was your wost veggie and why?

Here are my favorite and worst two.

This year, my main concentration is going to be on growing more vegetables and more diverse varieties. Some I may discover down the road will be good growers and eaters, though I am sure a few I will discover will never cross these lips again, and I will be looking for ways to sneak and them off on to unsuspecting friends. Though I would love to do that, I actually do give them warning or drop a "Beware Hot Pepper in bag" notice. That unsuspecting burning sensation is not fun on the mouth or hemorrhoids. Trust me. I know.

Last year, I had a lot of fun growing different types of peppers I hadn't grown before.   While I am mainly a sweet bell or sweet non-bell eater, I did try a few of the more milder hot ones. Of course, I made sure I had plenty of milk in the house first. Best darn stuff for cooling the lips, tongue, stomach and every other part of the body that a hot pepper can set to feeling like a fire is raging in there.

The only real hard part I had was making sure that the sweet pepper types didn't get cross pollinated with the hot cultivars.    Seems like sometimes no matter how much you try and prevent that, a stray bumblebee or other insect will come and drop some hot pollen on to your sweet ones. While I am thankful for all the beneficial pollinators making my job easier, I wish they would use a little more discretion as to where they leave pollen.

To make sure I am not about to start looking for a cloth to wipe the sweat from my forehead from accidentally eating a tagged sweet pepper that is now possibly a hot pepper from those energetic pollinators, I let my neighbor taste test first.   It's great to having a willing test subject close by. He has asked me to give him fair warning though on the supposed heat values as there has been a few times I had him dancing on his toes from a burning one.    He eats all types and loves the hot ones, but draws the line at the ones that just plain burn. I am a considerate neighbor though if one accidentally is hotter than he can handle. I am ready with a glass of milk in case it is needed.                                                Big Red Pepper

It seems like the hotter a pepper is, the harder it is to germinate them, so I enjoy the challenge of growing some of the hottest types like the Trinidad Scorpion, Moruga and Ghost Peppers.

Now my all time, favorite vegetable to grow is tomatoes. Fresh, canned, stewed, whatever way they are served, I will eat them.

My all time favorite way is making a sandwich with a mound of fresh sliced tomatoes, slice of bologna, cheese, and it all slathered in a ton of mayo. Preferably at 3 am when I want that 4th meal. After eating a sandwich like that I can go back to sleep with a smile on my face and in my stomach. I will always have tomatoes in my garden.

Brandywine Cowlick's Tomato



The worst vegetable for me is peas. That is once I can get them in the ground. Seems they are always want to fall out of the hand and disappear into thin air no matter how hard you look for them.

The English and Snow Pea types are my favorite to eat, but will drive me crazy trying to grow. I know down here in the South it gets hot really fast and that it is best to get them started early in the spring. That I do. As soon as the ground starts warming a a bit, I get out there and get them planted.

I just don't know if I am not planting the seeds quite deep enough, not giving them enough nutrients or water. The plants start out fine. They sprout. They look healthy. I even put bracing for those that like to climb and what do I get? Nothing.   If not totally nothing, than I hardly have any fruit production. I get a pod here and there and next thing I know the high temps set in and the plants start dying back. Hardly makes it worth while to even try and grow them. I would dearly love to have more than a just handful of fresh snow peas to eat raw or add to a dish. Oh well, maybe this year will be the year I can turn my worst to best. I can always hope.

Now that you know my worst and favorite vegetables, let's here about yours.

    Big Daddy onion

Looking for a place to ask questions about certain vegetables? Are you good at growing veggies? Do you have maybe some helpful advice or pictures to share? Than feel free to come visit one of the following forums. Just jump right in an existing thread, or start your own thread and discussion. I'll leave a jug of milk out for you just in case. : )

The Virtual Vegetable Gardens Forums

The Vegetable Forum

If you know how or are a producer of large quanities of a crop, your knowledge would be appreciated in the Crop Production Forum

If you happen to be looking to purchase some tomato or pepper seeds, don't forget to visit the Seed Cellar store. They sell, heirlooms, unusal, as well as popular cultivars of organically grown seed fresh from the farm.

Orange Minsk tomato

Photograph's are copywrited to Patti1957 and used with permission from The Salsa Garden Cubit Databases.

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Untitled joseph Feb 6, 2014 1:41 PM 8

Best and Worst Kelli Jan 28, 2014 3:12 PM 18