Which veggies to grow in 2020? Well, because food prices are on the rise during the pandemic, my advice is to plant only the crops that you and your family will actually eat. For instance, if you regularly purchase broccoli from the supermarket, then you should probably plant — and freeze for winter — lots of broccoli. My two small food gardens are planted for both fresh eating and storage:
Note. Please keep in mind that I live in a cold climate (New York’s Hudson River Valley, zone 5-b). We had snow in early May. Consequently most of the plants are just beginning their careers.
Veggies to Grow in 2020
The twelve beds in my small Kitchen Garden are planted thusly:
Bed #1: Potatoes. These are ready for hilling now. I planted ‘Red Pontiac,’ ‘Yukon Gold’ and ‘Kennebec.’ All these are good storage varieties. Not sure how to plant potatoes in a raised bed? Click here to watch my video howto.
Bed #2: Onions and Brussels Sprouts. Would you believe I’m still enjoying the red onions I planted last summer? They are terrific “keepers”! This year I planted more reds plus a yellow storage variety. No “sweet” onions for me, as they do not store well. Brussels sprouts are slower than molasses to grow, but that’s okay. Harvest time here is November through December. The sprouts turn extra sweet after they’ve endured a few frosts.
Bed #3: Broccoli and Lovage. Broccoli needs only 50 days to make its gorgeous green heads, which means a second crop can be planted after the first one matures. Here’s how to blanch and freeze broccoli. The lovage plant in the background has been providing us with salad greens since late March. Lovage — a sturdy perennial here — thrives even in frigid spring weather!
Bed #4: Asparagus. Not much to see here, as we’ve been cutting and eating the spears daily. Asparagus is a perennial crop — I planted it in the spring of 2015.
Bed #5: I have not planted it yet!
Bed #6: Tomatoes. I inserted 10 seedlings, one for each post of the wooden A-frame trellis. Some of the fruit will be frozen whole. Others will be enjoyed in this devastatingly delicious Classic Tomato Pie.
Bed #7: Garlic and more Brussels Sprouts. Hard-neck garlic is great for storage, so that is what I planted last fall. When the garlic scapes emerge in mid-July, I will turn them into this addicting Garlic Scape Pesto. Garlic scapes — and the associated pesto — freeze perfectly well. I managed to find room at the rear of the bed for more Brussels sprouts.
Bed #8: More Broccoli and More Storage Onions. Because we can’t enough of these crops.
Beds 9 and 10: Butternut Squash. This squash, like all winter squash, is great for long-term storage. The seedlings at the base of a cattle panel trellis. The trellis will permit the monstrous vines to grow up, not out. More details about cattle panels in this riveting post.
Beds 11 and 12: Pole Beans. These, too, are planted at the base of a cattle panel trellis. Unlike bush beans, the pole-types produce all summer long. And since I planted 18 seeds, there will be enough beans to blanch and freeze for winter.
Oh. There is another cattle panel trellis arched between beds 7 and 8. I inserted yet another butternut squash seedling there.
Oh, my. This post is longer than I intended it to be. So let’s save the Herb Garden for another time, okay? Frankly, I want to know what food crops YOU have planted — or are planning to plant– during the summer of 2020. Spill the beans in the comments field below!
xKevin
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Vickie says
What size are your boxes? This year I planted a very small garden. I’ve not planted chard and kale before and planted 1 of each to see how they would grow. They’ve done so well I’ll plant more for fall harvest. My peas did not do well and I don’t think my 4 tomatoes are getting enough sun. I live in zone 8 and it gets very hot in the summer so was trying to place the tomatoes so they wouldn’t burn. Love your garden!
Belinda says
Hi Kevin,
I experimented with food storage this winter and plan to lean in to the successes. We learned that sweet potatoes will grow in the Adirondacks, but only on the south side of our boxes. They stored well. The small Roma type tomato, Juliette, stored longer than our others. (I oven roasted the ones that started to shrivel). Spaghetti Squash kept well, as did carrots, potatoes, and butternut squash. Japanese turnips (from Bakers Seed) were a new discovery that grew and stored well.
Happy gardening!
Kelly says
Hi, Kevin. Love the pictures of these raised beds! I may have overdone it this year since with the extra time at home this Spring. We have one 8×4 raised bed, where we planted lettuce, spinach, radishes, 4 red onions and carrots, carrots, carrots. Oh, tomatoes and pole beans in 5 gallon pots. Are those soaker hoses or weeping hoses? It looks like they aren’t buried. Are you planting seedlings right on or near the hose? Thanks!
Lisa says
Wait? You planted EIGHTEEN bean seeds? What kind? I always plant so many more than that and never have enough to freeze. I usually plant bush beans. I have my first planting in (will do two more) of Slenderette, which does well for me. Not well enough to have eighteen plants though!
I have peppers planted, but then the weather changed (had been 90) and I may pull them out. Tomatoes of course (the wintersown ones are proving you CAN wintersow tomatoes, they are much healthier and sturdier than the indoor under light ones). I started harvesting my Sugar Snap peas a few days ago. Butter and Sugar corn is up (I don’t usually bother with corn, it’s cheap to buy and not worth the space for one or, at most, two ears per plant). There may be parsley, basil and cilantro, there may not be. Does my struggling kalettes count? I got the seeds from an Instagram “friend” in the UK. I did not plant any cucumbers (I’ll miss lemon cucumbers this summer), squash or gourds or family members. I was infested with too many squash bugs last year and am trying to get them to move on!
I guess I have onions too. I planted Welsh onion seed last year to have the flowers, which I got, but they are onions!
I tried spinach, chard, broccoli, kale (two kinds), but I just don’t do well with cool weather crops other than peas. This was the last time I’ll try. Mulch the beds and put them to rest from now on.
Sue says
Your garden is Great, Kevin. New raised beds are so nice.
Our peas will soon be ready for harvesting. I think this will be a good pea year. Like you, our broccoli is coming along really well. Also, cabbage and cauliflower. I haven’t seen many white butterfly yet, but we have lots of swallows here. I think they get them on the fly. Good! In late Aug. when the swallows leave, that’s when I start seeing white butterflies again. If we do get green worms, the wrens eat them. We have onions and shallots and leeks coming along nicely. Soon I will plant out cucumber, squash and pie pumpkin and pepper starts. Our tomatoes went in 10 days ago. We installed a cattle panel trellis, too. Don’t you love the look of them.? Can’t wait to see it with veggies climbing on it. My husband teases me and says….and you said we weren’t going to have a garden this year. Ha
Catherine says
Early on I planted in the ground lettuces, swiss chard, spinach, red veined sorrel, a French thyme and in a pot a rosemary to bring in in the winter. A last year’s italian flat parsley survived the winter so I have two sturdy parsley “bushes”, a perennial French tarragon, volunteer dill seedlings from last year’s plant are doing nicely too. I put in 9 pea seeds around each of the 3 sticks of a tepee and it seems only two peas have sprouted but they are not growing much. I seem to have no luck with peas!
Finally this week I put in tomato plants 2 heirloom Cherokee in the ground, and two cherry tomato plants and a cilantro in a recycled water trough at the edge of our deck for nibbling. I have plan extra raised beds but haven’t had the energy to kill the grass and weeds, dig up and level the ground yet. It is just me doing gardening and maintenance and our little town in the Kansas Flint Hills we have to fight an uphill battle with weeds, volunteer trees, trumpet vines…. anything and everything undesirable will grow like a jungle with the heavy thunderstorm rains and following sunny warm days.
David says
Hi Kevin;
My wife just recently introduced me to your blog and I have been enjoying it immensely.
This year I have expanded my little veggie garden and besides the beets (love pickled beets) and tomato we normally plant I have added broccolini. We find that it is sweeter and not as strong tasting as broccoli. We also decided to expand our bush bean crop and even added a purple bush bean. We have found with constant harvesting the bush beans tend to keep producing.
Keep up the great work
Carol says
Besides the usual tomatoes, squashes, and beans etc., my garden includes fennel (harvesting bulbs for salads, greens for smoothies, seeds for baking); beets (mostly for the power greens which also freeze well for winter smoothies); cucumbers and dill; kale for summer “chips” (also, cut up and freezing to add to winter soups; and spring onions. This year I added a strawberry bed to increase my berry “orchard”–which includes raspberries, blackberries, josta bushes, grapes, and service berries. I especially enjoy my ever-expanding herb garden!
Cate says
Wasn’t that May snow crazy? Your lovage is gorgeous! Wish I had a spot to how some.
I garden on a very small lot, and most of my beds are flowers-only, since they are close to our old Victorian (1874) and the soil likely has lead from the old paint.
So, everything we grow to eat is in pots and planter boxes (zone 6). I grew and harvested radishes (French breakfast) already – they are just about all eaten. The greens are delicious and we have been sauteing them and eating raw in salads. I have spinach and sorrel coming up nicely. Several types of lettuce ‘sandy’, ‘red mist’, ‘freckles’ and ‘blade’.
Seedings of mouse melons, cherry tomatoes (‘super bush’ container variety from Renee’s and ‘sungold’ will get potted up this week. Seeds are in for ‘astia’ zucchini – another container variety- also from Renee’s. Going to put in some green bean seeds if I can find the space.
Herbs are thriving in terra cotta pots. Most make it through winter, with the exception of lemon verbena (lemon verbena sorbet is SO refreshing in the summer heat and I use it to make tea as well), thyme, parsley and basil, so they get planted each year. Also have sage, lemon balm, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, chives, mint (for mojitos!), peppermint (for tea).
Janet Rouse says
Kevin:
I love your cages they are great. My husabnd and I planted carrots, onions lettuce, tomatoes, beef steak tomatoes spinach , cherry tomatoes, potatoes,
and then we planted sunflowers and put out in the ground our beautiful Begonia plants since we are lockdown in Boston MA we have more time to play in the yard. Happy Memorial Day and be safe
Sandy S. says
Hi Kevin!
Have just finished planting my garden in Colorado! We live in a small town SE of Pueblo, and have already had upper 90s here! I’ve planted my pole beans , which have just popped up, along with all kinds of tomatoes, zucchini and other squash. Carrots and onions too and even a few strawberry plants and cucumbers too! We love eating the fresh beans and I was wondering how you cook the frozen ones? I have yet to find a good recipe for them, I freeze them without blanching and they just don’t taste right! Thanks!
Sandy says
Love your posts! I’m in zone 5 Michigan and I don’t really plant much of a garden for veggies. I have tons of asparagus growing now and garlic i planted last fall. Earlier in the month i planted arugula and dinasor kale. We had snow earlier in May and today is 84 degrees, so kale might fry. Fennel and Brussels sprouts round out the garden until I find a couple of tomato plants. Have a great weekend and growing season!
Phyll says
Hooray!!! Today I started to plant my veggies/herbs that I started from seeds: time consuming and sometimes frustrating. I try to plant a few different types of of veggies every year: this year, watermelon radish. Japanese eggplant, lemon basil (for pesto), celery among the normal zucchini, yellow squash, kale, swiss chard. Then the usual heirloom tomatoes (sun gold, cherokee purple, roma, black krim). I also have an herb garden, mostly perennials except for globe basil and thai basil and some flowers. In zone 6, I wish the season was a little longer and enjoying every minute.
Phyll says
P.S.: Kevin, have you found and/or planted black garlic yet???
SarahBeth says
My ‘new’ crop this year is Shishito Peppers. My friend Elizabeth started them in early March. ( I was still enjoying the Southwest sunshine. ). Now I have9 lovely sturdy plants to tuck in my 6 raised bed gardens, along with 16 different heirloom tomatoes I started on April 4 th. I’ll put in 36 plants total, then just all the regulars We will eat happily from our efforts all summer and into winter ..
Roberta Adams says
Thankyou Kevin, for all you teach us.
I have greenbeans, yellow neck squash,
Cukes, and tomatoes. Raised garden, fertile, fenced to keep our Deer, rabbits.
We just re-homed a Family of racoons (5).
I also have plans now to plant seed potatoes from your great video. I have 3 remain ing
Large deep pots available. Maybe pole beans?
Stiil looking for rehubarb.
John Chapin says
For those who aren’t familiar with an organic solution to protecting your broccoli and other cole vegetables from the dreaded Cabbage Butterfly caterpillars, check out any brand that contains Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis. This is a completely safe bacteria culture that kills only the caterpillars of moths and butterflies, and it has to be eaten, so it won’t hurt any other butterflies that visit your garden as well as bees and other pollinators. You can have perfect cole vegetables without endangering yourself or beneficials!
Bette says
Hi Kevin. I just started planting my veges yesterday. I do everything in containers on my deck. So far I have planted 4 tomato plants (2 cherry type for the neighborhood kids to come and pick themselves), 2 types of green beans, 3 types of peas, carrots, basil, lots and lots of beets, 2 types of lettuce, 2 types of spinach, summer squash and zucchini as well as cucumbers. I have 6 earthboxes I got for free , a 2’x8′ waist high raised bed and 3 3′ x 1′ planter boxes all found at excellent prices on Craigslist and an assortment of smaller planters. I still have to plant broccoli and herbs, so much to do! I make my own potting soil so it takes me forever to get ready. The neighbors (both parents and children) asked me to plant watermelon and pumpkins so that will happen in a day or 2. I dug up and created a 24′ x 8′ garden bed in a neighbors yard for these beasts. Glad I saved up my shredded leaves to add to the bed as I could not make any soil for this garden. Just tooooo big. It should be an interesting summer! By the way, I had an epic fail on my winter sowing jugs. 29 jugs and nothing worthy of planting. There is always next year.
Celeste says
OMG Kevin. Your loveage looks like mine. We can’t eat it fast enough to keep it manageable. Do you use it for cooking as well as salad? I will try to keep it short 3-4 feet this year since it usually grows 8-10 feet.
Almost over pruned my lavender. It’s only now starting to shoot on a few stems. I’m moving tarragon, rosemary, and chives to the front walkway where the deer eat everything in sight. They don’t seem to bother the herbs (except parsley) so I’ll make herbs more accessible to the deer.
Planted most of our garden this weekend: potatoes, corn, Swiss chard (we love chard, it freezes well, so planted LOTS), mustard greens, lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, arugula, field cress, beets, nasturtiums, pole beans, sugar snap peas, snow peas,…etc. When it gets a little warmer, I have cucumbers, egg plant, and pepper, marigold, dahlia, and parsley starts to get into the garden.
I love you cattle fencing trellis!!!! 🙂
Celeste from Montana
Tina Roney says
Great recipes. Have enjoyed a few…
Made my own raised beds this year, with the added challenge of slopes…
Have a kitchen garden of herbs already in rock beds. In the raised beds, put in fruits, a variety of veggies, greens, tomatoes and some heirloom varieties of squash , peas, & beans.
Some oddities; Musquee De Marog-squash, Golden Jenny-cantaloupe, Cowpeas-Purple Hull Pinkeye & Holstein, Red Kuri-squash, Crimson Sweet-watermelons, Cherokee Way-bush bean.
It’s going to be interesting to see how it all turns out.
Appreciate all you do & your humor.
Kathleen L. says
Having been born in Albany, NY, I grew up in the Hudson River Valley with all the kinds of plants which you describe, Kevin. But now I grow just the opposite of what I was used to in the Hudson River Valley. Out here in the Mojave Desert of Southern California I’m growing right now lettuce, purslane, amaranth (for the edible leaves which look like coleus), cucumbers, butternut squash, basil,peppermint, spearmint, oregano, thyme, sage, chamomile, and various kinds of cacti and succulents which have thick, fleshy leaves. It’s almost too hot for any more lettuce til September. Because of squirrels and rabbits (no deer!), these veggies must be grown in a ‘grow-shack’ made from a frame of 2 x 4’s with sides and ceiling of 1/2″ wire mesh. In June, July and August I cover the grow-shack with a shade cloth to protect the plants from the searing sun. The arid air will actually prevent home gardening until September or October. The two best gardening months of the year are April and October. If I plant again in early September, I can have fresh produce for the Holidays. But even then I must plan carefully because of SNOW!
Alexis says
Thank you Kevin for your meticulous attention to details. I recently moved from So Cal to Montana and it is very different zones, but what a blessing… I too am now in 5b and excited each week to read about your garden tips & insight!
Thank you!’
Judy says
Finally getting a home where we can garden again, have grown most everything you grow, other then lovage, got to try that. We grow year round with the use of frost blankets. We also plant extra garlic because up to Maybot can eaten like spring onions, equally yummy. Love your posts!
Randa says
Hi Kevin. Always love reading about your gardening ventures. I, too, use cattle panels for numerous things, but I am going to try butternut squash, watermelons, charentais melons and gourds this year. I have onions, cabbage, potatoes, peas, strawberries and goose beans so far. It’s going to be 88 today in zone 6. Ugh! Happy gardening!
Jeane says
Love seeing other people’s gardens, especially yours, Kevin. I showed my husband how you made the cattle panel trellis, as I really want to make one, too! Have got most of my garden planted, am waiting another week to set out the zucchini, cucumber, cantaloupe plants as we have a few more nights in the fifties this week. I do not have a lot of space so haven’t yet grown enough to store for over winter, aside from herbs I dry and some leeks to freeze. Right now have in the ground five kinds of tomatoes (some indeterminate heirlooms, cherry tomatoes and purple cherokee), two types of collard greens, swiss chard, leaf beet chard, leeks, turnips, carrots, red detroit and golden beets, salad greens: mizuna, tokyo bekana, three kinds of lettuce, arugula and tatsoi; sugar snap peas, purple pole beans, russian kale and amaranth ‘callaloo’ (a first for me this year). I haven’t tried to grow potatoes in years because mine kept getting some kind of disease. I have lentils in pots this year- just for fun- my climate is probably not quite right for it. In my herb beds I have rosemary, lavender, sorrel, nepitella, lemon balm, sage, thyme, green bunching onions, four kinds of basil, three kinds of mint, dill, parsley, chervil, hyssop, winter savory, fenugreek, sculpit, chives, tarragon, summer savory and epazote. Nasturtium and borage just to enjoy looking at- altho I know the flowers are edible. Also lovage in a sunny perennial bed. Rhubarb also w/perennials but not big enough to eat yet. I usually grow peppers but my seed didn’t germinate this year. Oh well. The rest is doing grand!
Carol L Samsel says
I wasn’t going to do much of a garden this year as I am now babysitting full time for my 3 youngest grandchildren a 5 yr old and twin 2 yr old. They keep me running. However when Covid 19 hit and food became scarce at the stores I changed my gardening plans.
We are growing our usual tomatoes for canning and eating plus several kinds of peppers for both eating and freezing. Growing lots of summer squash and winter squash and probably way too many sweet potatoes. I didn’t get any regular potatoes planted but will try a fall crop of those and some cabbage.
We’ve been enjoying the salad garden already and will replant more of that for fall too,
I put in my first cattle panel arch this year and am growing my pole beans and cucumber on it. My 5 yr old granddaughter got all excited that I had put a bridge into my garden 🙂
I planted Okra yesterday and will get the watermelon and more squash in the ground this week between storms. Probably plant more carrots in the straw bales with my tomatoes.
I feel I’m running way behind with things but it was just too cold to plant much until this week. My winter sown jugs are over flowing and some had to be divided and put into pots that I could use jugs and soda bottles as domes for protection against the cold nights. There is more that I have going on but this is already too long of comment 🙂
Ana says
I love Brussels Sprouts also and my family begs for them. How do you store them? In addition to what you mentioned I like kohlrabi and Pak choy. I couldn’t get turnip seeds this year but they store well. I love to garden!
Debby Moore says
Hi, Kevin! I love your emails and the information you share. Thank you!!! I found your website when I was researching how to save the African Violets my Grandmother had given me. Great information and the violets look beautiful. We expanded the garden this year and I just finished planting 30 20 gallon Smart Pots with veggies. We live in SW Michigan and some of the veggies are experiments like Black Mountain watermelon, Cowhorn Okra and a melon called Petit Gris De Rennes. I also planted french green beans and Blue Lake green beans, pumpkin, classic eggplant (I couldn’t find the Hansel eggplant this year), cherry and paste tomatoes, peppers, Rat Tail radish as well as French Breakfast radish, carrots, fennel, lettuce, beets and a spinach type green called Orach. I also planted zucchini and yellow squash but they aren’t doing well. I still need to plant the Caribou Russet potatoes. I also grow a variety herbs in the main garden and also a separate herb garden. I did get a bit carried away with my new dahlia obsession and ordered 48 different tubers and I’ll need to get them planted in their pots this weekend. I love your cattle panel trellis and am hoping to add one to our garden.
Tracy says
Hi Kevin, the new raised bed boxes look great! I am curious as to why your soil level in them is so low. Was this deliberate or just not an expense you wanted to foot this year, or…covid…or?