Sharing the variety of veggies we're growing in our vegetable garden this year including peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, onions, garlic, peas, and more. All of these veggies will be enjoyed fresh throughout the season and some will also be preserved for later use.
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Welcome to week three of "what we're growing in our garden this summer." Today, we're exploring the vegetable garden. As much as I love buying flowers and tending to the herb garden, I really look forward to planting our veggies around Mother's Day. We've been very lucky to have baskets and baskets full of homegrown veggies each summer season.
There's nothing like going outside and picking something you've grown yourself. And being from Jersey, there's absolutely nothing better in the summertime than a sweet and meaty Jersey tomato! This year, we stuck with a lot of our basics again - early spring veggies, tomatoes, and a variety of peppers. We're also growing a few new vegetable varieties, plus one really fun plant that I can't wait to make use out of.
Then, around August, we'll start our pickling process. Last year, I pickled cucumbers, radishes, a variety of peppers, carrots, and even some green tomatoes. A good portion of our cherry tomatoes will be dehydrated to make "sundried tomatoes." We try to preserve as much as we can so nothing goes to waste and we can continue to enjoy our bounty once the gardening season has ended.
Vegetables We're Growing in our Garden this Year
Radishes
One of the earliest seeds that get planted in our garden is radishes. This year, we started with some black radishes, but the flavor was a bit too potent for us. Once we ate - and shared - those radishes, we switched back to our usual red globe variety.
Radishes are very easy to grow from seed and reach maturity in no time at all. I like slicing them to use in salads and making quick refrigerator pickles out of them.
Snap Peas
Snap peas are another early seed that gets planted. We just started to get plump peas to pick off the vine. They're one veggie that doesn't seem to make it into the house. We find ourselves snacking on them right from the garden.
Carrots
Carrot seeds get started early, too. We've just started pulling some decent sized carrots from the garden. They're super sweet with a great crunch! Perfect for snacking. Hunter absolutely loves them!
Lettuce Mix
Late last summer, I decided to plant some lettuce seeds in the garden. Once we were able to snip leaves from the garden, I was immediately wowed. Wowed by lettuce - can you believe it? Lettuce from the garden is exceptional! It's nothing like what you get in the store. It has actual flavor and stays crisp longer.
So early in the spring, I decided to start a variety of lettuce seeds again. Along with some starter plants I picked up at the garden center, we now have a decent variety of greens growing in our deck planter boxes (along with some scallions to keep pests away). We snip as needed and have made delicious garden salads and topped burgers with our lettuce leaves.
Onions
I actually started some red and white onions from seed last fall. Then, we planted from onion sets early this spring. We're just starting to find some good-sized onions in the garden. Both the seed and onion set grown onions seem to be growing at the same pace.
If you've never had a garden grown onion before, you're missing a lot of flavor! You can use them fresh from the garden or cure them (I dry them on a baker's rack) for later use. We even like to use the green onion tops.
Garlic
The garlic was planted late last year in the growing season. To grow garlic, all you need to do is break apart a bulb and plant the cloves in the ground. We grew your standard variety of garlic, plus some giant elephant garlic. We already have some regular-sized garlic drying on our rack for later use. Once the leaves turn brown on the rest of our garden, we'll pull it all to cure.
Hot Burrito Peppers
We grew hot burrito peppers last summer and they were so good with the most perfect "zing" of heat to them. Not too hot and not too mild. But we had a hard time finding them this year and almost scratched them from our list until one lucky visit to the garden center. We found a place to squeeze them in our garden and they've just starting to produce peppers. We use them fresh, but I'd also like to try pickling them.
Costa Rican Sweet Peppers
While looking for some seeds to start late in the winter, I came across these Costa Rican Sweet peppers. The peppers are said to have the flavor of a better bell pepper. We've already tried a couple green peppers off the vine and they were delicious. But they're not fully ripened until red, when I'm sure they'll be much sweeter.
Rutgers Tomatoes
We always grow a couple varieties of your standard garden tomato. This year, the Rutgers variety is one of them. It's classic, summertime tomato flavor and meaty texture makes it perfect for sandwiches - or just eating like an apple. The tomatoes, in my opinion, are the perfect size - not too big and not too small.
Early Girl Tomatoes
The Early Girl variety of tomato has been a staple in our garden for as long as I can remember. They're known for maturing at a faster rate than other varieties. They're also a decent size with a decent taste and texture. I've used them to make my own crushed tomato sauce before, but we generally use them for sandwiches, salads, and the like.
Husky Cherry Red Tomatoes
We've already picked a couple cherry tomatoes off of our plant. This variety is sweet, with a nice balance of acidity. They're pretty juicy and will be great in salads all throughout the summer, as well as make excellent snacks. Towards the end of the season, I'll probably pickle some with herbs and garlic, as well.
Green Beans
Green beans are one of my absolute favorite things to snack on straight out of the garden. And this year, we're growing two varieties - bush beans and purple beans. Green beans grow really fast and we've already had our first couple purple beans (they're purple on the outside and green on the inside). Very soon, both varieties should be loaded with crispy, earthy green - and purple - beans.
Indian Eggplant
Last year, we grew Italian eggplant and Ichiban eggplant. My in-laws always grow Italian eggplant and end up with more than enough to share. I'm not a huge fan of the Ichiban variety, so I decided to try something new this year - Indian eggplant. These are small, round eggplants that apparently have a sweet flavor and buttery texture. Since I will cook myself eggplant during the summer for lunch, I figured these would be the perfect size with no waste.
Sweet Cherry Peppers
I wanted to grow sweet cherry peppers for their sweet, but slightly zippy flavor. So I started them from seed this year. Our plant started off small, but is finally showing some good growth. I can't wait to pickle these later on in the season to use in salads, on pizza, and maybe even stuff.
Coolapeños
One pepper variety that's become an absolute staple in our garden is the coolapeño. It's a heatless jalapeño with some great flavor and crunch! It's one of our most-used peppers during the summer season. We also like to pickle them. I learned last year that when you let them turn orange, they turn into a sweet snacking pepper.
Italian Pepperoncinis
Another pepper variety that I grew from seed is the Italian Pepperoncini. I also grew these to pickle later on in the season, but have already enjoyed some fresh from the garden. These dark green pepperoncinis aren't too hot and have a nice, peppery flavor to them. So far, I've really liked them as a pizza topping.
Sweet Banana Peppers
Sweet banana peppers are another annual staple in our garden. These long, yellow peppers are delicious fresh or pickled. They have a mild, pepper flavor with a touch of sweetness. While we usually slice them up to top burgers, pizza, and salads, they're also good fried.
Hot Banana Peppers
I will not touch these peppers in their fresh state. They're a little too hot for my liking. But when pickled, the heat becomes more tolerable and the briny base they're pickled in balances the heat. The pickled hot banana peppers are excellent on burgers!
Luffa Gourd
One of the newest additions to our garden is the luffa gourd. While they're a squash that's used in Asian cooking, they're most popularly known in their dried state as natural sponges. I was able to find dried luffa at an ethnic supermarket near me last year. After cutting it up to use as sponges, I knew I had to grow my own.
I planted them from seed and they had a rough start (all due to Jersey's crazy fluctuating spring weather), but they seem to be making a comeback. I look forward to harvesting, drying, and maybe even selling some natural sponges later in the year.
Cucumbers
Instead of classic garden cucumbers, this year we started a smaller snacking variety from seed. The plants are just starting to vine up the trellis we made for them. I, for one, am really excited to harvest these for snacks, salads, and to make homemade pickles. I'm hoping for some great flavor and crunch from these!
And that's our vegetable garden this year! By next month, we should really start to see our plants producing and I should be posting almost daily baskets of the vegetables I've picked (follow me on Instagram for those updates). Next week, it's our last week of this blog series and I'll be finishing it off with the fruit we're growing this year. There are so many fun fruits growing!
