What should I grow in my garden?

Zucchini? It's simple enough to grow and tastes much better home grown than the waxy, store-bought ones.

Fresh tomatoes are always incredible. I like Early Girls, especially. I've had luck with Red Russian Kale - they are sweeter and tastier than supermarket ones. Snap peas and snow peas are also very good - snow pea leaves are delicious.

I usually grow different type of tomatos (black, cherry etc), pepper, eggplants, herbs and salad. It's not really about the food (unless you have a really huge garden). Pick vegetables that you love seeing grow slowly and that you love taking care off for a couple of months. Kale is boring.

Basil is easy and it's one of the more expensive herbs to buy from the store.

Dill as well.

MARY! Quite contrary! How does your garden grow?

OP, grow a garden of earthly delights.

don't do bell peppers, but do specialty peppers like bananas or jalapenos. Tomatoes are a must. I like fresh cucumbers as well vs store.

It really depends on the season. You can't grow every vegetable year round. They have different needs in regard to heat, coolness, and amount of sunlight. Summer is for tomatoes, beans, corn, cucumbers and zucchini. Corn and zucchini will take up too much room for the size of your plot. Home grown tomatoes definitely beat store bought ones. In early fall, you can plant lettuces and greens (spinach, mustard, arugula, kale, collards, and the various asian greens (nappa cabbage, bok choy, etc). Those vegetables don't like heat. If you're adventurous, winter is for fava beans and I imagine that in LA you could plant peas then too, and onion and garlic sets. Coriander and parsley are dirt cheap - no point to growing those. Basil is expensive, so very worthwhile to grow. A home plot is also for those unusual vegetables and varieties that you never see in stores. (Such as the specialty peppers listed above).

Very nice suggestions. Keep them coming!

Herbs, tomatoes. I would grow gladiolas. They never have fabulous colours or really magnificent specimens in run of the mill florists. Pot, if you are allowed.

OP, how do the rules work? Is everything you grow in your plot yours, or is it all shared with the other members? Is it only vegetables or can you grow fruit as well?

I like R10's idea. I've always grown flowers (for cutting) in my vegetable garden. Things like cosmos and zinnias are so easy, and the conditions that suit vegetables (fertile soil and lots of sun) are perfect for them. The more you cut them, the more flowers you'll have. I agree with the suggestions for peppers (I love Hungarian wax peppers). Scarlet runner beans are sold as ornamental annual vines, but they're edible, and mine attract hummingbirds. I had a wonderful planting one year of Glass Gem Corn (ornamental) with ornamental squash and hyacinth beans growing up through the stalks. It's fun to have some pretty things to display for Halloween and Thanksgiving (and I give lots of them away: kids love them). Oh, another idea: luffas are actually a kind of easy to grow squash: grow your own (it's probably late in the year to plant those). Dill and fennel are nice additions in the kitchen, but they also are food for caterpillars.

You're in LA, do citrus, do keylime or mini lemons or something. Do a salsa garden (tomatoes, onions, cilantro, jalapenos or serranos, cumin flowers, etc.). I wish I could grow shit like that, I'm stuck with northern climate standards and the occasional artichoke.

r13 why can't you grow those? I'm in zone 5 and my cilantro came back every year for five years.

R14 I'm on Vancouver Island and while it is possible to successfully grow these things during a hot summer, the maintenance on a citrus plant (for example) in this climate is a bit more onerous than I'd tolerate -- you have to bring them in in winter (meaning, they have to be in pots, not planted in ground, and you need a dark place to store them through winter), you have to take extra care fertilizing them, they might not fruit at all (the little keylime tree I had a few years ago certainly never did, and I babied that thing like I gave birth to it).

And our summers are not consistent enough, this summer is quite cool so far, while last was brutally hot, so I was able to grow jalapenos, but not this year, really. I was exaggerating my limitations a bit, of course, there is quite a bit I can grow, it's just right now my little 10'x6' greenhouse if taken up almost entirely by my four (legal!) marijuana plants, not much room for anything else. And my two little plots are taken up with artichoke, sunflowers, brussels, and carrots.

In my city neighborhood, I have no doubt that the area soil is completely polluted with animal shit and piss. Plus lead, plus asbestos, plus all sorts of crap. If your neighborhood is similarly polluted, either buy potting soil, or plant flowers but not vegetables.

I grew beets in mine this year and discovered that the greens are really good too. I am in the southeast, though. I had peas in early spring which were amazing—I just ate them raw in salads. I agree with everyone else about herbs. They are expensive in the store and easy to grow. I have so much basil and I make lots of pesto. I also have sage, thyme, rosemary, tarragon and dill.

AH, citrus are not kept in the dark inside, in the winter. They are put in orangeries or greenhouses or sun porches are that cool and light. They will bloom and/or continue to produce and mature fruit, if they are healthy.

Basil is expensive, but also easy to grow in a pot or a planter. If you don't have that much space at the garden, I wouldn't waste space on basil.

Tomatoes, green beans, snow peas or other peas, basil , thyme, oregano, cilantro, a hot pepper, arugula or lettuces.

I forgot to say ^^^ there's a book called Square Foot Gardening that is great for small spaces and planting the right amount of each type of plant. Good all-purpose starter gardener's book.

Pot

I used to have a garden plot too, OP, in a major urban area. The thing I learned my first year is that if you have anything that looks appealing, it will be stolen by other garden members or the general public (if it is open access). Things like strawberries or tomatoes will disappear quickly. I eventually leaned to grow stuff that doesn't draw attention (like radishes) but tastes great.

R11, it’s all mine and fruit is okay too.

Silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row.

Parsley.

Rose bushes.

This will end in tears.

White oleander.

Copious amounts of pot, silly.

Purslane. Highest in Omeg 3. Will grow in poor soil, drought tolerant. Tastes wonderful. I like wild better than cultivated.

[quote]I used to have a garden plot too, OP, in a major urban area. The thing I learned my first year is that if you have anything that looks appealing, it will be stolen by other garden members or the general public (if it is open access). Things like strawberries or tomatoes will disappear quickly.

I’m going to get a locking crop cage. It won’t be foolproof but should at least deter some thieves.

Radishes, if you like them.

Leeks.

Thank you for the square foot gardening tip, I’m going to do that.

I love you R5.

Don't forget the Sage, Rosemary and Thyme R26!

R25 How does one go about growing pretty maids? I could really use some help around the house and in the yards.

I may have a couple of them start doing webcam shows and have them turn all of their cash over to me.

Octopuses.

Garlic -- much of what's in the stores comes from China, where you don't want to know how it's grown. Yuck. Fresh garlic is easy to grow and makes everything else taste great.

Snapdragons. Then you can pull the heads of and squeeze the sides to make it look like the snapdragon is talking. Hours of fun for everyone!

Grow whatever you like in the summer, OP, but don't forget about winter. I found that if I got them started early in the fall, my carrots, kale, chard, green onions, parsley, thyme and brussels sprouts did wonderfully through the entire winter, including prolonged snow. The brussels sprouts never developed the actual brussels sprout small buds around the stalk, but they did grow large beautiful leaves that made very good eating. I'd just slice off five or six of them, then a quick saute with garlic and olive oil. You're lucky, OP. When I lived in LA, every seed I threw on the ground seemed to grow like gangbusters with virtually no effort. Now that I'm in the Pacific Northwest, I can attest to R15's assertion that it is a struggle for successful tomatoes and peppers.

Polk Salad

R43 is right OP. Carry it home and cook it for supper, 'cause that's about all they had to eat, but they did all right.

Shallots , garlic, purple sprouting broccoli, mangetout, Chantenay carrots, courgettes and as many varieties of tomato as you fancy!

[quote]maybe there wouldn’t be as much difference with chard or kale I grow versus organic from The grocery.

I think you'll find there is a massive difference. I never thought chard was a delicious vegetable at all until I started growing it. It's in a whole other league, tastewise. Same with kale. Even the best commercially grown organic can't compare with food pulled straight from the garden right before the table. Also, along with cherry tomatoes and basil it's about the easiest thing there is to grow, just plant and pluck.

If you are in Southern CA you can probably start early. Try growing chives and French tarragon. Jersey potatoes. Mini-olives. Camomile and mint for tea.

Also try several varieties of strawberries, like those tiny intense wild berries to see which ones grow best for you. Asparagus and artichoke are fine foods but take several seasons to get going. Figs are quite easy and you can get fruit in one season. If you want to get really ambitious you can even try growing truffles on the roots of mini hazelnut trees.

I always make pesto with the masses of end of summer basil and freeze in cubes, leaving out the parmesan. It freezes well and seems to taste far better over the winter.

Dragons? Talking? That sounds frightening, R41. Maybe that’s fun for some people, but not me.

My garden is purely ornamental.

I probably spend an hour or so in it each day reading. I have a large parasol to reduce the glare.

Copious amounts of pot. Silly.