Looking for some quick-growing vegetables to include in your garden this year? Try these 20 fast-growing vegetables that you can either direct sow or start indoors. These vegetables are great to help you replace what you are buying at the store with fresh from the garden goodness!
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Quick Growing Vegetables For Your Garden
Quick growing vegetables are great for beginning gardeners or those that what to get the absolute most from their garden season as possible. Maybe you live in a colder region and have a short growing season, these quick-growing vegetables would be perfect for your garden.
Why Include Quick Growing Vegetables In Your Garden?
Including quick growing vegetables in your spring or fall garden give you a quick turn around that you can harvest and feed your family. We like to include many of these prolific growers in our garden to fill in the gaps left by some of our longer growing varieties.
These Quick Growing Vegetables Can Go In As Soon As Your Soil Is Workable
Still chilly where you are? You can add row covers over your seeds, plastic or even a blanket at night to help keep your seeds a little warmer. If you are using a blanket or plastic make sure you remove them in the morning. The idea is to keep the worst of the elements off the plants and lock in a bit of the heat to prevent your soil from hard freezing.
- Radish (go with the normal small varieties): 23-28 days to harvest, you’ll want to plant most about 1 1/2 inches apart from each other.
- Beets: Beets tend to struggle a little in warmer conditions so now is the perfect time to plant them. You can also harvest some of the greens and eat them while still getting beets.
- Turnips: Turnips like beets tend to struggle in warmer weather, so they like to be planted in cooler weather. Like the beets you can harvest some of the greens and still get turnips. Don’t take all the leaves or it will kill the plant.
- Pak Choy: is a fast-growing Chinese cabbage that is ready to harvest in just 30 days.
- Bak Choy: is ready to harvest as soon as it has usable leaves, the smaller varieties mature at 6 inches tall, larger varieties mature at 2 feet tall. You can harvest them in less then 50 days from sowing and can be harvested early if you need to.
- Tatsoi: this one can be harvest 3 weeks after planting for baby leaves or wait 7 weeks to let them reach full maturity.
- Kale: You can harvest kale at 25-30 days for baby kale leaves, just remember to only take a few leaves at a time. Kale can stand up to cooler weather.
- Mustard Greens: mustard greens are a lot like kale, you can harvest them around 25-30 days for baby greens and continue to be harvest all the way up to a mature plant. They can also hold up to cold weather.
- Snow peas: both snap and shelling peas can handle quite a bit of cold weather. You can sow them very close together and harvest the pea shoots, or plant them every six inches for full-size plants. Peas start to really struggle in temperatures above 90 degrees F.
- Chard: chard is a very hardy plant that can handle very cold temperatures. You can harvest it as a baby green or let it reach maturity.
- Collard Greens: These plants can handle both heat and cold temperatures. These greens are pretty quick growers and prolific.
- Onions: onions can handle quite a bit of cold weather, and are really easy to grow. Harvest them as green onions for quick food and it will add lots of flavor in your food. Or you can let them reach full maturity.
- Leeks: leeks are another quick-growing vegetable idea.
Quick Growing Vegetables: Warm Season Crops
If you live in the south and it’s already warm where you are the time to plant cold crops is over. Here are some great fast growing vegetable options for warm weather:
- Cherry Tomatoes: these will do best if started 6 weeks before your last frost. If you live in a place where it is really warm, you can go ahead and direct sow them. They will usually produce about 50 days after transplanting them into your garden.
- Cucumber: you can direct sow these and they will begin producing around 45 days later. They need to be planted in a place where you can water them regularly. They do not have to be trellised, but they do best on a trellis.
- Bush & Pole Beans Green Beans: Beans are really quick growing vegetables that are easy to grow. Pole beans will need something to climb on. These can be direct sown in your garden. Pole beans take a tiny bit longer than bush beans to produce but they produce much more. You can sow them close together and then thin them and eat the bean sprouts.
- Yellow Squash & Zucchini: squash produce prolifically and very quickly, but they are really prone to squash bug damage. Covering them with net row covers or picking any bugs or eggs off your plants each night is a must if you have squash bug problems in your area.
- Kohlrabi: this can be grown in both cool and hot weather.
- Okra: Is a prolific quick growing vegetable that is easy to preserve.
- Climbing Spinach: this is an easy spinach to grow that is prolific and can stand up to the heat.
What Vegetables Grow Fast From Seed?
Looking to start a garden fast? Try these quick growing vegetables you can start from seeds:
- Lettuce, Kale Greens & Micro Greens
- Radish
- Beets
- Pak Choy & Bok Choy
- Beans
- Peas
- Squash & Zucchini
- Cucumbers
- Okra
- Melons
- Winter Squash/Pumpkins
- Carrots
Fast Growing Vegetables
Fast-growing vegetables are a great way to get the most out of your garden and growing season, but make sure you still have some longer growing vegetables in your garden. Most of these are really easy to grow, some will take a little more care than others but they are worth the effort to grow them.
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