🏡 Our favorite, easy-to-grow plants for the home garden.

Even if some have a bad reputation.

When someone interested in gardening asks me about easy plants to grow, the first plant that comes to mind is mint. But mint has a tendancy to take over a garden area and I’m not very fond of the taste. Just because a plant is easy to grow, doesn’t mean you should grow it. You should grow what you like. But you might not know what you like.

The plants in this letter, I like. Even though, some mentioned will have a tendancy to grow beyond their intended space. Experienced gardeners might balk at a few of my suggestions. But did I mention that I like these plants? There is a sort of comfort that comes with their presence in our gardens. Their resilience is welcomed and I find that I like to have a few plants in the garden that don’t really need me.

I am SURE that there are numerous readers who have favorite, easy-to-grow herbs, vegetables, and flowers! If this is you, leave a comment! Also, If you aren’t a fan of any plants I mention below, let us know about it!

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Kale

Lacinato kale is my favorite. The knobby, dark green leaves, often with a hint of blue, leave me feeling healthier from just looking at them.

Kale is definitely a favorite of mine and Morgan’s. We plant it in the spring and in the fall. If the winter weather doesn’t get too frigid, we will have it year round as the fall crop will over winter.

You can start kale by seeding directly in the garden or start it inside. It isn’t too finicky and will usually do well either way.

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Lemon Balm

Lemon Balm is a member of the mint family and has a knack for hanging around like its cousin, mint. Lemon balm is easy to grow and unlike its cousin, it hasn’t spread throughout our herb garden. It has stayed relatively contained.

We love it because it makes a great base for herbal teas in the summer.

It is a lush green for most of the year and only requires a trim once it dies back in the winter.

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Raspberry

It’s hard to beat a fresh picked raspberry. At our house the berries never make it inside. The kids love picking and eating the berries before they ever leave the patch.

Raspberries fruit twice a year, which is fun. They grow easily and will spread if you don’t contain them. Perhaps that’s why people don’t grow them as much as they do other berries. They also have thorns, but they are the small kind that annoy as oppose to the bigger more painful thorns of their blackberry cousin.

We also love raspberries at our house because we use their leaves in summer time teas each year. It’s a great source of Vitamin C and adds a nice herbal flavor. It’s also a popular herb for women’s health.

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Yarrow

Yarrow has done really well in our herb garden. Where it is planted only a receives a few hours of sun a day and the soil is less than desirable. But, our yarrow grows, blooms, and carries on with little fuss. The flowers are pretty and make nice additions to arrangements.

Yarrow leaves can be made into a poultice, or wet mash, and applied to skin wounds. We will sometimes add it to herbal teas.

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Comfrey

This is a newer plant for us. It is a popular plant among organic gardeners and homesteaders alike. The reason being, it has an extensive root system and a really long tap root which allows it to pull nutrients from deep in the soil and release them at the surface when their leaves die back each winter. This makes it a great plant to mulch with and to use in herbal brews.

The comfrey plant is also used in medicinal concoctions for various ailments and wounds.

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Fennel

It’s a miracle we still have our two fennel plants. Between our 4 year old and swallowtail catepillars, the plant is almost always eaten back. Its a delicate looking plant, but it is far more resilient than it appears. And, it requires little care.

As mentioned, it is the host to swallowtail catepillars and produces a flower that insects love. For these reasons, I’ll always keep some around the garden.

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Okra

Okra is a vegetable that has adapted very well to the southeastern US climate and is a fine producer of edible pods. These pods are excellent when eaten while young and tender. I like them raw, but they are also delicious boiled and fried!

The pods do produce a mucilage that make’s them slimy when boiled. Even eaten raw you will get a gooey substance in your mouth. While unusual, this mucilage is harmless and in fact has shown positive benefits in aiding digestion.

Start Okra by planting the seed directly into the garden. The seeds are easy to save. If you are like me, you might think its neat to save your okra seed each year to pass down to your kids and grandkids. They will have seed specifically selected by you and specifically adapted to your garden.

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