05/25/2026
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=957174910628034&id=100090066006540&post_id=100090066006540_957174910628034&sfnsn=mo&mibextid=VhDh1V
Some of the most exciting crops in American gardening are actually incredibly easy to grow. The catch is that they are just hard to find. You usually have to hunt through specialty seed catalogs because your average grocery store rarely carries them, and local garden centers almost never stock the transplants. Believe it or not, most of these are much easier to grow than standard tomatoes. Here are nine crops that are absolutely worth adding to your garden.
Kohlrabi tastes like a wonderful cross between a broccoli stem and a crisp apple. It takes about fifty-five days to grow from seed to harvest. It is delicious whether you slice it up raw for a crunchy snack or roast wedges of it in the oven.
Ground cherries offer a sweet flavor blending pineapple and tomato, all wrapped up in a delicate, papery husk. A single plant can produce hundreds of these bite-sized treats, and they do exceptionally well growing in containers on a sunny patio.
Celeriac is perfect if you love the taste of celery but want a hearty root vegetable. It stores beautifully for months in a cool spot and makes a phenomenal side dish when you boil and mash it up just like potatoes.
Sunchokes grow toweringly tall and produce charming yellow blooms at the top. In the fall, you can dig up the soil to harvest delicious, nutty tubers. Just be sure to plant them in a dedicated, contained space, as they are famous for enthusiastically taking over entire garden beds.
Malabar spinach is a gorgeous climbing vine that thrives when the fierce summer heat makes regular spinach bolt and turn bitter. It is a fantastic heat-loving substitute that loves to scramble up a tall post or trellis.
Luffa gourds are incredibly versatile. You can harvest them young and cook them just like zucchini. But if you leave them to fully mature and dry on the vine, they transform into amazing, natural bath and kitchen sponges.
Shiso is a beautiful Japanese herb that offers a complex, bright flavor falling somewhere between basil, mint, and anise. It is traditionally used as a fresh wrap for sushi, and you will love how reliably it drops seeds to grow itself again the following year.
Tomatillos are essential if you want to make an authentic, tangy salsa verde. Just make sure to plant at least two of them near each other so they can cross-pollinate. Once they do, they are incredibly productive and will yield massive harvests for your kitchen.
Yardlong beans are vigorous, heat-loving climbers that produce a heavy bounty of pods growing well over a foot in length. They are incredibly satisfying to grow and perfect when chopped up into bite-sized pieces for fresh summer stir-fries.
These wonderful plants are considered unusual simply because of mass commercial grocery marketing, not because they are difficult to cultivate. Give them a try this season and bring some exciting new flavors to your homegrown harvests.
