21 best vegetables and fruits to grow in your garden

These crops are surefire bets for your edible garden. Get our tips on planting and growing, and lay the groundwork for a delicious harvest!


Slicing tomatoes
'Early Girl' bears tasty red fruits on vining plants, and sets fruit at lower temperatures than other tomatoes. It's a great all-purpose tomato. 'Tigerella', an heirloom type, has red- and-orange striped fruits with a tangy flavor. 6 plants grown in open ground can supply a family of 4 with enough tomatoes to eat fresh and use for canning or sauce.
> Related: How to grow the perfect tomato


Sweet corn
The plants may be too tall (5 to 10 feet) for some small gardens. But a sweet corn such as 'Kandy Korn', 'Sweet Symphony', and 'Silver Queen' is worth growing in a sunny plot―you'll never find a sweeter corn in markets. These types of corn are good enough to eat right off the plant when picked at peak ripeness. Once standard sweet corn is picked its sugar changes to starch quickly. By rushing ears from the garden to boiling water, you can capture their full sweetness.
> Related: Growing warm-season crops


Cucumbers

Make room for at least one cuke in your summer garden and you won't regret it; think of all those ways to serve the fruits―as appetizers (sliced and topped with deviled eggs), in salads, and cold soups. Vining types ramble to 25 feet or so (or choose a bush type). We love the round, yellow, mild- flavored Lemon cuke, and the long, pale green Armenian cukes. Plant 5-6 seeds in hills 6-8 inches high and 3-6 ft. apart. Thin to the 2 strongest plants.


> Related: How to grow cucumbers


Eggplants

The large, deep purple fruits of 'Black Beauty' and small, slender 'Hansel' are stunners. Both are delicious grilled in olive oil, or paired with ripe tomatoes in Eggplant Parmigiana. To produce a crop, plants need 2 to 3 months of warm days and nights. A well-spaced row of these eggplants makes an ornamental border. Start from nursery-grown plants; they're much easier than seeds.


Watermelon

What's a summer picnic outdoors without watermelon? And we don't mean just any watermelon, but the cute, 'PureHeart Seedless' variety whose round fruits are mini or personal- sized. Vining plants need room to sprawl, though. To save ground space, grow small melons on sun-bathed trellises; support the heavy fruit in individual cloth slings.
> Related: How to grow watermelons


Strawberries
Few things taste sweeter than a plump, sun-warmed strawberry picked at peak of ripeness; it's dessert right off the plant. If there was ever a fruit to grow yourself, this is it; most commercial varieties are subjected to too many pesticides. 'Quinault' is a flavorful everbearing variety, but we also love 'Sequoia' (a June-bearing variety, one of the tastiest around) and 'Seascape', tasty fresh and in jams. Standard strawberries yield 5 to 10 quarts of berries per 10 ft. of matted row.


> Related: Tips on growing strawberries

SEE ALL 21 TOP VEGGIES AND FRUITS TO GROW IN YOUR EDIBLE GARDEN