Fruit and veg growing for beginner!

[showmethegin]

Hi, looking for some advice for a total rookie. We are looking into buying a couple of long wooden planters with drainage for our garden and I would like to grow either fruit or veg with our pre-schooler. The spot where they are going is very sunny and we will be on top of watering etc.

What would’ve recommended for a beginner? I have almost no experience so it needs to be relatively straightforward and if possible I would like something that we will get more than one “harvest” from during the season if that makes sense.

Thanks

Strawberries are lovely for small children, most other fruit takes longer to produce fruit. If you have space to plant them for future years, raspberry canes are easy and my children love to check them and pick the ripe ones.

Tomatoes (technically a fruit I suppose) are lovely for little ones, mine love the different coloured cherry tomatoes. We are trying some stripy ones this year. My 3yo chose to grow lettuce which he has chosen and planted, he will be able to pick it and it can be cut and come again. I don’t think he will actually eat it though. Peas are lovely for children to pick as well. Our biggest hit has been beetroot (yellow ones which are sweeter) and carrots as they love pulling them up.

Raspberries are easy to grow and the canes spread each year. I started with 5 now have about 25.

I don't claim to be an expert at all! How large/deep are the planters? How much continual care do you have time for? Some veg you plant, they grow and then harvest, whereas others need weekly trimming/staking etc.

-Potatoes are easy, but other than foraging out a few at a time, you usually pull them out in one go.
-Mangetout can provide a few crops worth. They need some support, so a little wig wam or trellis. You can buy multi coloured packs, so mine come out either green, yellow or deep purple.
-Tomatoes. There are 2 types, corden which need the side shoots pinching out and can grow up to 2m long. A bush variety would be better if you don't have the space or time to be pinching out every few days. Cherry varieties can be very sweet and less likely to split if you have heavy rain.

When I started out, I just bought seeds from lidl with success. I now also buy from kings seeds, suttons, real seeds and simply seed.

Following!

Agree with the above, and also following! We had success with cucumbers in pots once too- the actual cucumber tasted nice but the outside was kind of bumpy/prickly almost so I'd like to try a different variety next time.

The first bit of advice I would give is start with only a small amount of a variety of things, so you can observe them and learn. Badge it as an experiment this year, with no expectations of a bumper crop.

If you buy seeds with a long date on, you should be able to use them again in 2027, and maybe even 2028. Check the packets.

Easy things are: strawberries, radishes, lettuce/rocket/spinach, courgettes (need space), chives, beans/peas.

Thought of others. Beetroot come in a range of colours and fairly quick to grow. The candy strip 'chioggio' ones in particular are so pretty.

Radishes are also quick and easy. Mixed salad leaves are good because you can cut them with scissors and they continue to grow. Pea shoots are nice too.

I have an allotment and have found a lot of things quite tricky to grow because of slugs etc. The easiest have been sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes. French beans also fairly easy.
If you have a sunny spot maybe put some herbs in too - thyme, oregano, rosemary (don’t let it get too big!), chives. Basil from a supermarket pot in the summer? But divide it up as it will be lots of little plants crammed together. Coriander is more tricky as it bolts. And mint needs its own separate pot or it will take over but there are some lovely different varieties with different scents.

Oh and you’re supposed to buy special seed potatoes to avoid disease but you could just take a couple of baby potatoes from a bag and put them at the bottom of a trench and cover them with soil. Then gradually fill in the hole as the plants grow.

We grow a few things each year and have most success with DDs with cherry tomatoes and dwarf french beans. You can get both as bush varieties so no staking is needed and the children can just go and pick things as they are ready. You can also grow strawberries or the tumbling tom varieties of tomatoes in hanging baskets if you are short of space.

Radishes are very easy and they're quick too, plus if you forget to harvest them and let them go to seed you can also eat the seed pods.

Potatoes and courgettes are simple but need a very large pot or one of those green plastic grow bags you can often get in Aldi or Lidl if you're container planting. But harvesting the potatoes is one of my DDs' favourite things to do as they say it's like hunting for treasure.

I would do bush type cherry tomatoes, such as tumbling tom, so your pre schooler can reach. Same with strawberries, which tend to put up with any conditions and make more plants every year by putting out runners.

Runner beans are pretty easy and you get lota of beans from them. If you grow the black knight variety you get black bean pods and they taste amazing.

Peas. Ours are eaten straight from the plant, never get into the pan.

Pumpkins/squash are very easy but they take a while. Also sunflowers. The seeds are edible after drying (or hang up the dead flowerheads for the birds) and they are fun to see who can grow the tallest.

I already commented up thread. If you didn't want to start with seeds, we often have little honesty stands around us with tomato and other veg seedlings for 50p or 3 for £1 etc. You'd need to check the variety as a bush version would be easier IMO.

Morrisons and many other supermarkets will also sell seedlings soon. B&Q is another one. You do tend to get say 6 or 8 of the same variety, so you might want to share them with friends, or advertise excess on nextdoor/olio.

One type I wouldn't recommend is brassicas- cabbage, cauli, brussel sprouts etc. They are prone to white fly, slugs and other bugs and need netting.

Carrots are another one I didn't mention which come in a variety of colours and are fun. You need stone free, fine soil though, otherwise they can fork and make funny shapes- which might not be what you want 😆

French beans are very easy and also look good as they grow up the canes.

We grew kale and salad carrots when the DC were younger as we had Guinea pigs and it was great to grow their food from seed and feed them it.

Also grew an apple tree from a seed from an apple my son ate in lockdown (we were that bored) which is still in the garden. It doesn't fruit obviously but still makes me happy when it survives another year.

Am no expert though so also following for ideas!

Agree with all of the above. Wanted to add a recommendation for 'tree spinach' which isn't the most exciting to eat (young leaves in salads, older cooked, like normal spinach) but it grows through pink! It's quite pretty, for an edible plant.

This kind of thing might contain a lot of the stuff you need. We picked beetroot as baby beetroot and then when they were big so you can get several harvests. The kids love seeing them grow inside and planting them out.

I have an allotment and I choose plants mainly with the kids in mind. As I said, we were surprised by how popular the beetroot was. This year we are growing rainbow chard, more beetroot, potatoes (they absolutely love digging them up!) raspberries (yellow and red) strawberries, pineberries (white strawberries), purple sprouting broccoli, carrots, and pumpkins. We also have redcurrant and gooseberry bushes, I give a lot of these away but the kids love picking them and watching for when they are ripe.

As a very much non expert I’ve always had great success with broad beans, great fun to pick and look after and usually get a bumper crop but if you pick a few each night that works too.

This is an absolute treasure trove of information! Thank you all so so much, really grateful for all your responses! I’m really excited to get started!

funny about all the mentions of potatoes, DS specifically requested potatoes despite not eating them; maybe he grows them himself it might convince him to eat them!

@showmethegin We started growing fruit/veg 2 years ago with our then 3yo OP ☺️ Still very much learning and experimenting 😅

I tend to let him pick whatever he fancies growing to be honest. We have a look at the seed packs together to pick out things that are ideal for planting at this time of year and then he selects what to grow. Anything he picks that’s not an ideal choice, I explain why and if he still wants to go for it then we do 😅🤣 it’s all a good learning process for him 🤷🏻‍♀️

We don’t grow loads of anything, just small amounts as he loves the variety of things.

We have a couple of raised planters where we grow a small of stuff - this year it’s carrots, beetroot and peas ☺️ all of which we’ve had success with in the past, plus a few rogue choices from DS. We use a few fabric grow bags for a small amount of potatoes which always work well. And then we have some large pots - raspberries which worked ok last year so I’m hoping for a repeat, strawberries which were fab and look to be doing well again, blueberries which are a bit of a labour of love and haven’t fruited yet after being planted 2 years ago 😅 but we’re hoping for this year 🤞🏼
We tried cherry tomatoes last year but didn’t have much luck to be honest.

DSs rogue choices this year have been corn 🫠 cucumbers and garlic 😅

‘Pink lemonade’ blueberries are nice, different to what you can get in the shops and I’ve had success with them in a pot. Get two blueberry plants if you can, although they are self-fertile they will produce better with another plant around.

Grow what you want to eat. With small children I would do peas, carrots, radishes and strawberries.

Popular with my kids are strawberries, blueberries (the bushes from Roots arrived last year with berries on, or Gardening Express have huge mature ones for £39 if you want to spend more). Blueberries need ericacious compost from the gardening centre.

Also multi coloured carrots, multi coloured tomatoes, and this year they have wanted to grow melons - not sure how they will do in the climate but they are growing big already. Things like spinach are very easy, as is salad, and you can cut and come again if you just harvest the outer leaves. Peas grow up a net on the fence so take very little space in a planter, and they put nitrogen in the soil so that’s good for other plants. There are things like evergreen kale or perpetual spinach you can plant once and continually harvest from even in the winter.

If you only have two beds, look at interplanting. Eg putting carrots between strawberries, slotting in some spinach between other plants to maximise pace. Planting basil under tomatoes