Healthy Vegetables to Grow in Kitchen Garden

Last Updated on December 18th, 2020

Different Types of Healthy Vegetables You Can Grow in Your Kitchen Garden

Imagine being able to collect green, tender, and perfectly ripe green peas seconds before they are eaten. Or, pulling out fresh and sweet beets from the garden to add them in your salad. Sounds scrummy, doesn’t it? Growing healthy vegetables in your kitchen garden is one of the best solutions to get the most nutritional produce while saving a few bucks on the go.

Benefits of Growing Vegetables in Your Kitchen Garden

Vegetables tend to lose nutrients once they are reaped and their quality goes for a toss once sugar converts into starch. For succulent veggies with the highest nutrition, try growing them in your kitchen garden. Some other benefits are:

• Better air quality and protects from air pollution
• Improves the aesthetic value of your kitchen
• It can inculcate a new hobby in you
• Helps to counter any food issues that prevail in your country

Tips for Kitchen Garden Even if You Are Tight on Space

Here are some tips that can come handy:

• Try succession planting: It helps to grow more than crop in a given space. For instance, plant fast-maturing corn after an early lettuce crop.
• Plant compatible crops: Interplanting crops helps in saving space. Examples of compatible crops are corn, beans, and squash.
• Include climbing crops: Growing vining crops, such as tomatoes, beans, and peas, helps in saving space. Moreover, they are easier to maintain and thus helps in saving time as well.
• Plant in triangular fashion: For optimal yield and saving space, planting crops in a triangle is a better option than planting them in rows.
• Make raised beds: They improve the yield, saves space, and lowers the time to maintain the crops.

Now that we know the benefits and tips of growing vegetables in your kitchen garden, let’s have a look at types of vegetables you can grow.

Give these healthy vegetables a try.

Roots Vegetables

Radishes

This rich in antioxidant root is easy-to-grow that can be ready to harvest within three weeks of planting it. You can plant radish seeds in the fall or the spring. But avoid growing them in summer when the heat is at its peak. A sunny spot is an ideal place to seed the, or else they put too much energy to produce larger leaves.  Radishes are rich in vitamins A, C, K, and fiber. They are also rich in zinc, phosphorus, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, and calcium.

Potatoes

Potatoes are very generous and easy growing roots. Just provide loose soil, sunlight, and adequate water and potatoes will give you an abundant harvest. Moreover, they are rich in vitamins B6 and C, copper, phosphorus, phytonutrients, potassium, manganese, niacin, and dietary fibers. You can boil, roast, or bake them. To make the most of its nutrition, don’t fry them or load them up with cheese or butter.

Carrots

These roots grow best in a cool climate. So, the ideal time to plant carrots would be in the initial spring or before the last frost. Carrots require light shade or full sun to develop their sugar content. Along with sunlight, they require loose soil and one-inch water per week. Pull them out of your kitchen garden and add them to soups, stews, or salads. Carrots are rich in beta-carotene, fiber, antioxidants, folate, copper, iron, manganese, and vitamins A, B6, C, and K.

Garlic

The ideal climate for garlic is during mid-autumn and early spring. Planting garlic is relatively easy. With fertile soil and adequate water, they can grow pretty much anywhere. But avoid planting garlic where water can collect around its roots and thus raised bed is an ideal place. You can add garlic to almost all food dishes. Besides being delicious, these tiny bulbs are rich in calcium, manganese, potassium, zinc, magnesium, phosphorus, sodium, folate, and vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, and C.

Beets

Rich in betalain pigments, with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, beets are a feast for eyes as well as nutritious for your body. They require a cool climate and thus should be planted in late summer or spring. Beets grow best in acid and loamy soil. Add them to a salad or a pickle to get manganese, folate, and vitamin B6.

Greens

Lettuce

This vegetable is gaining popularity due to its various health benefits. It has a high protein, fat, and fiber content. Lettuce is also rich in iron, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, and vitamins A, B6, E, and K. This cool-season crop can be easily grown in shallow and wide containers. Water it adequately to get delicious and crisp lettuce.

Cabbage

To grow this vegetable in your kitchen garden, you will require well-drained soil rich in organic matter. It is a cool-weather vegetable and grows best in early spring or winter. As it can be consumed as salads, soups, or stir-fries, keep a spot for cabbage in your garden. Cabbage is high in fiber, folate, copper, phosphorus, selenium, iron, niacin, manganese, choline, magnesium, and vitamins B2, B6, C, and K.

Spinach

This green leafy vegetable is packed with iron, potassium, folic acid, thiamin, and vitamins A and C. Spinach grows best in a cooler climate. With partial shade or full sun along with neutral pH soil, it grows within six months of planting the seeds. Pull out the spinach and consume it raw or cooked.

Kale

Kale is a cool-climate crop that grows best during the autumn or early spring. The cool climate favors the nutty and sweet flavor of this highly nutritious green leafy vegetable. This healthy vegetable is versatile in the kitchen garden as it can grow on raised or traditional beds, as well as in cooking as it goes well with salad, casseroles, stir-fries, and omelets. As spinach is full of minerals and vitamins, it is also known as “the queens of greens”. Moreover, it is low in calories, high in antioxidants, fiber, iron, and vitamins A, C, and K.

Mint

It is a perennial crop with fragrant and toothed leaves. Moist but well-drained soil and shade are the only requisites to grow this plant. Mint requires less maintenance and can even grow in confined places such as containers.  You can add fresh green leaves in salads, drinks, or even a health drink. Mint improves the digestion and maintains the health of your oral cavity.

Basil

It is one of the most common herbs preferred to be grown in the kitchen garden. Provide well-draining moist soil, sunlight, and adequate watering for its optimal growth. Basil is rich in calcium, magnesium, and omega-3 fatty acids. It is also rich in vitamins A, C, and K.

Others

Tomatoes

Nothing can beat the perfectly ripe and sun-kissed tomatoes from the kitchen garden. Slightly acidic soil and sunny location after the frost have passed is the ideal time for planting tomatoes. Besides tasting good as sauces, juices, and condiments, it is also high in potassium and vitamins A, B6, C, K, and folate.

Beans

The majority of the beans grow quickly and can be harvested within a week of sowing them. You can thus enjoy tasty and tender pods week after week. To grow them, place seeds in a sunny spot and well-drained soil with well-rotted manure. Being rich in protein, they also have a high content of fiber, copper, antioxidants, complex carbs, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, manganese, and potassium. You can grow a variety of beans ranging from lima, snap, black-eyed, and navy beans.

Zucchini

You can sow zucchini seeds in spring. They require full sun and well-nourished soil to grow adequately. Harvest when zucchini is young and tender. This super easy vegetable is rich in potassium, calcium, copper, phosphorus, and folate. It is also rich in zinc, protein, and vitamins A, B2, B2, and B6. Pick tender zucchini from your kitchen garden and add them in stews and soups. It can also be used as a low-calorie option in smoothies in place of banana.

Aloe Vera

This succulent plant has multiple health benefits. It can protect your skin from sun burn as well as delay the signs of aging. Why buy Aloe vera gel when you can the get it from the leaves in your own kitchen garden? Partial sunlight, adequate drainage, and daily watering can help in the optimal growth of this plant.

Last Words for your Kitchen garden

Add one or some of these healthy vegetables in your kitchen garden and have nutrient-dense and delicious veggies whenever you want to. Choosing the correct spot, using optimal fertilizer and soil, monitoring the plant’s growth, and using insecticides if any will help you to nurture and maintain your kitchen garden plants.

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Dr Kinjal Shah

Dr. Kinjal. Creative Writer/Ardent Reader/Loves Nature

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