EP342- 10 Essential Vegetables For Every Kitchen Garden: The 10 Vegetables Worth Growing

If you had to cut your kitchen garden down to just ten vegetables, what would you keep and why? We take on that exact challenge and build a list that is practical, flavour-led, and realistic for busy gardeners who want maximum results for the least fuss.

We start with the five filters we use when deciding what deserves space in a bed: taste (does it beat the supermarket?), effort versus reward, ease of growing, cost to buy, and how many ways you can use or store it. That framework quickly separates “nice to grow” from “worth growing”, especially if you are gardening in limited space and want crops that keep paying you back over a long season.

Then we get specific. We talk through tomatoes for that unbeatable homegrown flavour, potatoes for freshness you cannot replicate, and everyday staples like salad leaves, carrots, French beans, spring onions, beetroot, Swiss chard, red cabbage for the winter gap, and garlic for year-round cooking and great storage. Along the way we share simple, experience-based tips on sowing frequency, harvesting for continuity, and choosing crops that fit how you actually cook.

If you enjoy vegetable gardening, growing your own food, and making a small garden more productive, hit subscribe, share the episode with a gardening friend, and leave us a review. What would your ten vegetables be?

This weeks sponsor: 

Crann From  Probio Carbon 

https://www.probiocarbon.ie

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

How's

The Listener Challenge

SPEAKER_00 0:13

it going everybody? And welcome to episode 342 of Master My Garden Podcast. Now, this week's episode is along the lines of last weekend, um, because after last week's episode on 10 essential herbs, I got a message from a listener if I was only to grow 10 vegetables, what would they be? And this is uh yeah, it's an episode I hadn't thought about, but it's actually quite a good one because there's yeah, there's a lot of vegetables, a lot of different types of vegetables, a lot of different considerations, and what is it that you actually decide to grow and what is worthwhile growing. So I've compiled the list and it'll be interesting to see uh you know what other people's take on it is. Um I grow quite a few more than 10, generally speaking, at different stages throughout the year. But if it had to be only 10, I kind of have a compiled the list around that and I've given the reasons for it. But before

Sponsor And Soil Boosters

SPEAKER_00 1:16

we go to get into that, a message from this week's sponsor, it's Probiocarbon. So both Crayon and their biochar are two brilliant products that I've used in the garden for a long time. Um the biochar I apply on a yearly basis to the beds, no dig beds, and it is biochar, which has all the obvious benefits of biochar. And then obviously, that is supercharged with beneficial bacteria that really benefit the plants up top. So better growth, better disease resistance in the weather that we're having at the moment, better drought resistance, and more water holding capacity in the soil, and so on. And then the crayon I've been using on hedging really turned inside out in the last couple of weeks. It has got two applications at this at this stage, it's due a third one. Uh so that was is Portuguese laurel hedging that was looking a little bit sorry for itself, had picked up quite a lot of mildew over the winter period, and is now starting to look. There's only you know an odd little patch now. So another another uh spray of this uh probably next month, and then hopefully we'll be getting to the stage where it's a very, very resilient and much healthier looking plant than it was recently. So a very, very good product. All the details for that are in the show notes. So, yeah, 10 essential herbs for the vegetable garden. And I don't think it's an episode that we've covered before, but it's certainly an interesting one. And

The Five Selection Criteria

SPEAKER_00 2:49

I suppose my general ethos, and I'm not stuck for space, right? So I have loads of space to grow as much as I want. Generally, my limitations tend to be around time and being able to spend enough time tending to them. So, with that in mind, whatever crops I choose to grow, they really have to give the maximum results from the least amount of effort. It's not a laziness thing, it's uh with being involved with you know football teams and that type of thing. My evenings are tend to be tied up and I'm getting less time than I would like to tend to the garden. And so whatever I grow needs to perform with as little effort as possible. And that's kind of one you know, one kind of criteria that I look for when I'm growing things. So it's effort versus reward, I guess. Uh, and that's a big factor. And I think that's something that we all should look for, you know, if you have to put a huge amount of effort into something, or if you give over a lot of space for a small return, then you know, if you are limited in space, which as I said, I'm I'm not particularly, but if you were limited with space, you wouldn't, for example, be getting the most return for effort, or for the most return for space by putting in something like a cauliflower. And then that brings me to the next criteria. The next criteria is taste. When you're growing things at home yourself, what you want to grow is something that is going to taste remarkably different to something you would typically get in, you know, a supermarket or a farmer's market or whatever the case may be. And the thing about cauliflower is it's a lovely vegetable. I actually love it with you know white sauce. I think it's delicious. But it doesn't taste remarkably different when you grow it yourself, or when you buy it in your farmer's market, or even when you buy it in the supermarket. No great difference between them in any, you know, in any sort of form or or how you've grown it. So it takes up a lot of space. It is a singular harvest, so you plant it, it takes up a nice bit of space for the period of time it's not you know relatively fast, but it's not particularly fast return, and then at the end of it you get one harvest, one dinner, and that's it. So you know what I'm saying? Uh effort versus return or space versus return, then leading into taste, and the taste difference is just not there. On the other side of that, let's take something like a carrot. If you buy a bag of carrots in the supermarket, you know, they're ridiculously priced at a kilo for 39 cent or 49 cents. That's a whole other argument on how they're being devalued in supermarkets. Um, but we won't get into that particular part of it today. But you take that bag of carrots and then take carrots that you have grown in your own garden, you know, following the kind of things that we talk about on the podcast, soil health and so on. And you take that carrot and you eat it straight out of the ground. And now you're talking about a remarkable difference. So the carrot, for example, will tick the box of taste. Yes, it is tastes remarkably different to what you'll buy in the shop. You know, there is others that, and we'll talk about those in a minute as well. So taste is really important, and you're looking for something that's going to taste, as I say, remarkably different, chalk and cheese, night and day, between what is available in supermarket, farmers market, etc., or what you will grow yourself. So we're looking for that big taste difference. The taste that you know is whenever the crop finishes, you just don't want to eat another carrot or whatever it is. And the next one is ease of growing. Um, so again, it falls you know back to the effort versus reward, and we want something that things that are easier to grow. Um, not without effort, because everything takes a certain amount of effort, and the reward then is you know, hopefully a lovely harvest. But things like, again, not to pick on the cauliflower, but they're gonna take a little bit of effort because they're gonna take up a lot of space. Summertime, you're gonna have to either be very, very vigilant for caterpillars, or you're going to have to be constantly, yep, you're gonna have to cover them with with bio netting or environment and you know ensure that no caterpillars can get on them. You're tying up a lot of space. So there's a bit of work in that, and then again the reward at the end is not so so wonderful. Uh there is something that falls onto the list, like for example, tomatoes. There's quite a bit of work in tomatoes, but it's the it's the effort to reward again. So we're kind of all of these criteria are kind of linked. So they're not tomatoes are not, they're easy to grow in terms of you know, it's not difficult. Most people will be successful, but there is a constant little bit of work involved in them. You know, you're talking about watering, you're talking about feeding, you're talking about side shooting. If you do that, it it's not actually essential, but if you do that, then that's important. So, you know, you you have a certain amount of constant effort required on tomatoes. So, but the reward is definitely worth it at the end. So, so far the three criteria we're using are taste, effort versus reward, and ease of growing. And sometimes that ease of growing, it may not be the easiest to grow, but the reward at the end is still worth it. So that's another one. The other criteria that you kind of look at is cost to buy, and again, you may well, or I may well, pick on the the humble cauliflower here. Cauliflower in the shops depends at certain times of the year, they'll be you know 79 cents or a euro. They're typically gonna be one forty, something like that. Um, you might in a household use one a week. Typically, you you wouldn't, though. It could be one every two weeks. Um, so again, you're gonna link a couple of the criteria here. They're not that expensive to buy. If you grow them yourself, you'll have them at the same time. I know you can freeze them and so on. So they're not that expensive, and then the reward for growing them again is not as huge. But again, if you sort of look at tomatoes, they can be quite expensive to buy good ones, and they won't test anything as good as you can. So you can see all the criteria kind of linked, and then the final criteria use is things that you can use them for. So you know, with certain crops, there is multiple uses, and they can be used fresh, some of them can be stored quite easily and brilliantly, and there's others, and again, I'm going to fall back to the cauliflower. Um there's kind of not that many things you can do with a cauliflower. Okay, there's cauliflower chips, there's cauliflower sauce, there's you know, cauliflower salads, there's there's a there is a few bits and pieces, and I'm sure some of you creative chefs there are going to tell me um lots of other ways of using cauliflower and so on. And but there is nowhere near as many say as the tomato. So again, cauliflower is a limited crop in this scenario. So tomatoes, obviously, fresh in so many ways, you know, your salads, your bruchettas, um, but also they can store quite easily. They harvest over a long, long, long period of time. There's multiple cooking methods, there's multiple sauces, chutneys, etc., that you can make with it, so you can create such a variety in the uses, as opposed to you're again picking on the cauliflower. Sorry if you're any cauliflower fans out there, but um, so that's kind of the criteria. So, again, the five criteria you kind of use to come up with this list are taste, effort versus return, ease to grow, cost to buy, and uses and storage ability. And as I said, they kind of all intertwine and interlink when you start to look at each individual one. So this is not in you know um order up from the the one essential up to the you know number ten, it's not uh a list like that, it is just ten crops. You can put them wherever you choose within one to ten.

Tomatoes And Potatoes First

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Uh so number one tomatoes, and this is of all of the crops we're going to talk about now, tomatoes is the one that is so different. I had my first tomatoes this week, about six cherry tomatoes, and they are just phenomenal. They're a little bit later than I would typically have them, tiny bit. But even a friend who gets them off me every year, he's been asking me for about three weeks are the tomatoes ready, and because they are phenomenal. They're the difference, the taste, the ways of using, like I love just uh cook baking them in the oven, putting them on toast, and just with a little bit of salt, and they are beautiful. I have a particular variety that I grow. Uh the seed didn't germinate this year, so I don't have it this year, but it was uh I think it was yellow chicken or yellow something or whatever. It was one of the two yellow ones that I had, and it grew really big into a kind of a beef, a beef kind of tomato. And you sliced it relatively thickly, fried it on a pan, and a kind of a strange, not a strange, but a kind of a caramelization happened when fried on the pan, and it got really kind of sweet with a little bit of an acidic kick at the end. But that fried on the pan on brown toast was just phenomenal, and you won't get a tomato in any store that tastes like that. I've never ever tasted like a tomato of this type, just phenomenal. So many times I will from you know, from the end of my harvest, which is typically mid-October, I'm lucky enough that I'm able to extend it to that time of the year, mid-October into early November. A lot of the time I'll hardly have a tomato between then and this time of the year again, because every time you do, you're you're slightly disappointed. But tomatoes is one that 100% if you have you know a greenhouse, typically is what you need here in Ireland, but if you can grow them, it's it's one that has to be on the list. It's just so so delicious. Number two on the list is kind of the same thing, it's potatoes. Again, you know, there's no shortage of potatoes in terms of an offering within shops and farmers' markets and so on. But the ones that you grow yourself, you won't beat them. And prime example of that, we had a kind of a family gathering here at the weekends. Um, I actually turned 50, so that I had that kind of family gathering here at the weekend. Um interesting, I don't feel 50, but yeah, I am 50, and we had a bit of a get together. But I have Charlotte um potatoes which were harvesting from the tunnel, and we boiled them up as we're part of a barbecue, and the everybody, and I mean everybody, there was 30 people here on the Saturday, everybody was talking about the potatoes. They were very, very simply done. They were uh steamed with garlic butter and sea salt, and they were just everybody was talking about what variety, where you get them. Um absolutely they are delicious, and again, I don't think that's something you can replicate. Now there's a bit of effort, they're slow to grow. Um, you know, you have to get the ground ready, you have to get them in early, but there's not a huge effort, and the reward is unbelievable. You don't get a big harvest from Charlotte. This is kind of my second or third time growing them. Never getting a big harvest. Um they possibly wouldn't have got enough water in the tunnel if I'm honest about it, but they certainly, certainly are unbelievably beautiful potatoes. So I think yeah, potato has to be on the list. My favourite potato of all is British Queens. I have them almost ready to come out. So yeah, they're another that would make my list. Here in Ireland, we you know have an affinity with them, so I think they'll they will be on most people's lists, they can easily be grown in containers. I do prefer them out of the ground, generally speaking, but they can be grown in containers and can be grown quite well in containers. So yeah, potatoes is another good one. Next

Leaves Carrots Beans And Peas

SPEAKER_00 16:33

one on the list is it's one that you will kind of sew a good bit, and it is salad leaves. And I think again, this will give you so much return from little space and generally speaking, little effort. So easy to sew, easy to grow, uh, mixed salad leaves, you know, with the likes of your amaranths, your quinoa's, your rockets, um, spinach, lettuces, different lettuces, mixed lettuces. The ones that you can get in a cut-and-cum scenario would actually even be better, you know, that they're going to cut and you'll they'll just keep coming again. But salad leaves are one that will give you so much bang for your book, uh, they will you know they're not overly expensive to buy, but you use them on a regular basis, and you use them like for example, I mentioned the cauliflower that a family might have cauliflower once in a fortnight, typically speaking. But salad leaves, you know, I could envisage people having at some stage every day. So that's again taste, obviously, is phenomenal, much better than what you'll buy because it's just so much fresher. Effort versus re reward is really, really good with them. So uh yeah, they're no salad leaves would definitely be on the list. Um, within that, then as I said, rocket. So, for example, I grow perennial rocket, so I don't sew rocket on a regular basis because I have the perennial one there all the time, and I can harvest that so often, like I'm basically harvesting off it every single day. Um, and that is just so easy. So you only sew it once and then you can harvest hard as harvest all the time. So, in terms of effort versus return, that's a brilliant one. Um so salad leaves number three, number four is carrots, I kind of touched on it earlier. They're so undervalued, generally speaking, in supermarkets, you know, sold at such cheap prices. They're also I would say kind of tasteless, um, generally speaking. They're they're washed, they're dug for a certain length of time, they're presented, obviously, you know, in a bag, and there's very little wrong with them, to be honest with you, but put that up against one that you just pull out of the ground, wipe on your your shirt sleeve and eat it, and the the difference is phenomenal. Uh yesterday evening we had a stir-fry with carrots from the polytunnel, and they're Amsterdam Forcing, so they're kind of an airly, an airly kind of skinny, like the thickness of a pencil, not very not very fat. Uh, but they were just gorgeous, and yeah, the difference between them is huge. So, carrot is another one that'll be on the list. Number five on the list is French beans, and this is one that again to go back to the effort and return the taste. So, the taste is going to be really good, but the effort is not really that high with them. Do two sewings throughout the year, and you'll basically be harvesting for a long period of time, you can quite easily um freeze them, you know, blanch them, freeze them, and then have them for the over the months ahead. Heavily heavy heavy croppers. If you obviously get the climbing ones, you have to support them, but it's not really a big effort. Constant harvest over a long period of time. You can grow the bush ones, same thing. You get a harvest over a longer period of time. So again, effort to return is really, really good with them. Taste difference, definitely there is some, maybe not as stark as tomatoes or potatoes, but there is a difference of some sort. Um, peas, I kind of categorize with them as well. Peas the other day with the family around, um, pulling peas off on the pod, and several of the children who wouldn't be in connection, you know, connected to where fruits and vegetables are being grown on a day-to-day basis. But when I pulled off the pods and opened them, they actually couldn't believe the taste of them and they went back for more. And as I say, these you know children don't necessarily they wouldn't be in connection with growing of food on a regular basis. And to see them, you know, willingly going back to to get more, obviously they you know they taste them because I was getting them to taste them, but they willingly went back for more, um, while there was plenty of options of of sweet things around the place given that it was a party, but um, yeah, to see them going back for more just shows that there's you know there's something there taste-wise that they really liked. Next

Winter Crops And Kitchen Staples

SPEAKER_00 21:15

one on the list is one that won't be on many people's lists, uh, but for me I like it because again, the effort to reward is quite good. The other thing that I like it for is that it gives you something when you don't have much else, and that's red cabbage. You could also throw into that category, you know, savai cabbage, purple sprout and broccoli, but they give you a taste and a harvest at a time of the year where you don't have a huge pile else on the go. So deep into winter, early into the springtime the following year, you can have red cabbage, you can have purple sprout and broccoli, you can have savai cabbage, and they give you a beautiful like red cabbage gives you a beautiful. Earthy, quite a strong taste. Not everybody likes it. As I say, it won't be on everybody's lists. But I like those vegetables because they're giving you something at a time of the year where there isn't much else. And for that, they get into the top ten, in my opinion. Next one on the list is sort of the opposite of that. It's one that isn't you know overly different in in terms of taste. It's not you know the difference is not stark, but it definitely falls in for ease of growing and consistency of use, and that's spring onions. So it's on every seed sowing guide that we do on a monthly basis. It's easy to grow. Anybody will succeed with it. You can grow it in a small space, you get a big return from a small space. It's something that would be probably on most people's you know, shopping list on a weekly basis. It's also something that would be used within your kitchen on a daily, if not every second day, with salads, with stir fries, with you know that type of thing. So it's a regular use, easy to grow, not overly different in taste, if I'm honest, but convenient, fast growing, and for that reason it slots in here. Um next one on the list comes back to taste, I feel. It's beetroot, and again, there's kind of something here that maybe not all the other ones you know kind of tick the box for, and that is that as it's growing, the leaves can be used for salads. Not everybody takes advantage of that, but you should because they're beautiful. Uh, at the earlier stages, once they start getting a bit bigger, they get a bit stringy and a bit tough. But at those earlier stages, they're a beautiful salad leaf. But the beetroot themselves, uh roasted, unbelievably tasty. Um, you will not, you know, the the beetroot that you buy won't taste as good, it tends to go soft quite quickly. But fresh beetroot harvested, you know, and cooked in the oven is unbelievable. So we pickle here some years, not every year. We didn't do it last year, so we're we're actually currently any pickled ones are store-bought. But typically we would we would we would pickle them here and they're gorgeous as well, totally different to the ones you'll buy and much nicer. Um but a crop that gives quite a bit of reward for not much effort, once it's sowed, once it has germinated, doesn't too much affect it in terms of pests. Okay, it's a little bit slower to you know to reach its maturity, but still quite a you know, relatively quick um crop. Can be eaten over a long period of time, so you can start harvesting kind of baby beets at a certain point in time, and then you can allow them to continue to develop harvest as required over a long period of time. So, again, ease, ease of growing, not too much effort, and then very, very delicious on the other side of it, so thick in a lot of boxes. So, beetroot is another good one. Next one on the list is one again, it falls into you know lots of uses for it. We only had it yesterday even again in a stir fry, and it's rainbow charred. So, uses is in a stir-fry, leaves can be used in a salad, the crunchy stems can be used in a stalad, although personally I don't love them in a salad, and but I do love the stems. So when our tomatoes are ready, chop up some tomatoes, chop up the charred stems really finely, put in some parsley, put in some chives, and kind of saute them on the pan, and you'll have an unbelievable breakfast with a fried egg. And uh yeah, I'm talking a lot about cooking here and food, but uh I suppose that's the nature of it. Um but charred is a brilliant vegetable. Two sewings for the whole year, you can harvest pretty much 12 months of the year from those two sewings. Um, multiple uses you can harvest over time. So once you start harvesting, grow enough crops that you can just harvest outer leaves, allow it to continue to grow, harvest the outer leaves, and you can harvest this over months and months on end. And so, again, going back to effort and return, it's a huge return for a really small amount of effort. It's also a vegetable that you won't find in many supermarkets. I know it's in some, you will find it in some farmers' markets, but again, not all. So, in terms of availability, in terms of effort to return, it ticks all the boxes, and it's definitely a vegetable that I would not be without. Last one on the list is garlic. Um garlic is slow, so plant in November, harvest in June typically. So simple, does okay potentially pick up a little bit of rust and things, but a really simple crop to grow ties up that bed for quite a bit of time, but it comes out at a time where you can get something back in there. So garlic comes out, you know, your winter, you know, winter cabbage, savai, purple cabbage or red cabbage that I mentioned a few minutes ago, they can go back into the place. So you have it's out quite early in the season, or out at a time that gives you enough time to switch to something else. It's one that you would probably use quite a bit of. So most people would use probably you know a full head or bulb of garlic a week, I would say, uh maybe two. So it's quite a regular use, and it's generally something that you would use, you know, when certain crops like we'll tend to eat a lot of salads during the summer, and then as we switch into the winter, we'll tend to eat more root crops and you transition. But garlic is one that will be kind of used all year round. So even in the summertime with your lighter cooking, you will use garlic in your more earthy stews and so on. In the winter time, you will use garlic, so it's kind of used all year round. So it's not you come the taste comes into it here as well, because again, a lot of the a lot of the garlic that's in supermarkets, if you look at the sources on it, they're you know Peru, China in a lot of cases. Um you don't really know what has been used in the treatment of them, particularly for this, you know, for that long travel that they're gonna do. They're not overly expensive to buy, but you know, in terms of taste, a lot of the nice French varieties, they just give you a taste that is different and really, really trumps anything that you'll buy in a store. So for taste, for ease of growing, um cost to buy is not high. Uses there's loads of uses, storage they'll store over a long period of time, so it takes a lot of boxes. I would also try in onions there, very little difference in taste between what you'll grow onion-wise yourself and what you'll buy in a farmer's market or supermarket, but they're easy to grow, really, really easy to grow. If you have the space, I don't think you can fail with them. I know a lot of people this year just with that really hot weather onions bolted, but in a general sense, they're easy to grow and very hard to not be successful with them. So, looking over that list again, you're looking at tomatoes, potatoes, salad leaves, carrots, French beans, red cabbage, spring onion, beetroot chard, garlic, and a few honourable mentions along the way. Again, apologies to any cauliflower fans there. I don't mean to pick on it, I do grow them. Um, but I just don't think in a garden where you're caught for space that they really justify their place because not much not a wild amount of taste difference take up a good bit of space. So, again, all of those, if I was to pick 10 must tabs, that is the list.

Festival Mention And Closing

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Um another thing just to mention Carlo Garden Festival has kicked off um the effort the uh episode a couple of weeks ago covering all the speakers. Like, if you just go back on that, there is some amount of speakers, like unbelievable speakers at at this festival over the course of a week in various beautiful gardens around Carlo and surrounding areas, and yeah, it's a really really really brilliant festival and really worth checking out. So uh Carlo Garden Festival, if you are doing it, you know, have any spare days over the next week, get that, check out that. Um before we finish off and mention again for this week's sponsor is Pro Biocarbon. The link to that is in the show notes, and that's been this week's episode of Ten Essential Herbs for the Kitchen Garden. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and until the next time, happy garden, you can't do it.