Summer Planting Guide: 15 Easy Veggies to Plant in your Kitchen Garden this Summer!

Sharing today with my fellow Melburnians & anyone else who resides in a mild temperate climate, my fave easy things to plant in your garden for summer! Summer in the veggie garden is my absolute fave. The sun is shining, everything grows so much faster with the longer days and plenty of summer sun. It’s the perfect season for beginners to start gardening and a summer veggie garden is just so much more enjoyable to tend to when it’s not cold and muddy outside.

Pictured above: our winter garden, all in bloom and almost ready to be transformed into our summer garden soon!

Picture above: our summer garden last season

What to plant this summer:

A very non-exhaustive list! But here are some essentials and easy to grow things to try out:

beans: super fun to grow - there are climbing varieties which will need vertical support as well as bush varieties which well, grow in a bush!
beetroot: grow these from seeds (though I’ve also grown from seedlings and they were fine). Enjoy the greens whilst they’re growing then harvest the root once big enough!
capsicum: pick up a seedling or two for all your summer pizzas and more. You can grow these in large pots too.
corn: sweet corn is super easy to grow and grows really fast! Plant your corn crop together in a group to aid in pollination - do NOT plant all your corn seedlings separate and in different spots or you may not get corn.
chilli: try jalapeño for your pizzas! Or the many other varieties out there which I haven’t tried because I can’t do much above a jalapeño! You can grow these in large pots too.
cucumber: grows as a vine, have ready something to support it!
eggplant: pick up a seedling or two to save time germinating them. You can grow these in large pots too.
potato: plant in a separate, dedicated patch or potato bag (will share a tutorial soon!). Harvest when the plant dies down in autumn.
pumpkin: super easy to grow but warning, pumpkin plants grow large and can take up metres and metres worth of space so only grow this if you have lots of space.
silverbeet / rainbow chard: one of the easiest greens to grow.
spring onion: plant the ends/roots from a grocery store bunch and watch them grow new shoots. So easy.
strawberries: any and all varieties! You can never have enough strawberry plants. Buy these as seedlings not seeds as strawberries are commonly propagated and planted as runners (which are baby seedlings that grow from the mother plant). Exception: alpine strawberries don’t produce runners!
summer herbs: try sweet basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, mint, lemon balm - so many options!
tomatoes: try cherry tomatoes, they’re prolific and grow like a vine.
watermelon: try sugar baby watermelon - they’re a mini watermelon variety that are good for single servings.