Looking for Ridiculously Easy Vegetables to Grow in Raised Beds?

I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who've gone through all the trouble of setting a raised bed up, filling it with soil, and adding plants, only to give up when the growing got tough. Maybe pests attacked or seeds didn't sprout or all the plants just ended up looking sad and stunted.

If you're sick and tired of failing in the garden, here are 10 plants that are super easy to plant and grow. They're perfect for those of you who just want gardening to feel simple or who are looking for some quick success. And if you've already got a raised bed filled with great soil, then good news: growing these veggies will be even easier!

A List of Easy Vegetables

• kale
• radishes
• parsley
• sage
• basil
• beans
• Swiss chard
• lettuce
• arugula
• chives

Let's look at what makes each of these so dang easy to grow.

Kale Is an Easy Vegetable to Grow

Kale, yeah, this is one easy-to-grow plant!

Why It's Easy

• Kale is a biennial, which means it wants to live two full years. Biennials are typically pretty hardy plants.
• You can plant kale out well before your last frost date. If it's well-established, it'll last through the summer, even during the hottest parts of the year. It can even keep going through a mild winter. These plants can survive almost any kind of weather as long as they're well watered.
• Cut from your kale again and again, and it'll just keep producing leaves for you. Harvest the leaves closest to the base of the plant, and your kale plant will push new growth from the center. If you take double harvests, you can even create your own year-round supply of kale to use in smoothies and stews.

Grow This Easy Plant

You can start kale from seed or you can grab a little kale plant from the nursery. It'll be totally worth your money because you'll be able to harvest so many leaves. Check out our kale growing guide, and consider kale a no-fail in your garden.

Radishes Are Low-Maintenance Plants for Your Garden

Radishes are the fastest-growing root crops, and fast in the garden world usually means easy. They can go from seed to harvest in less than 45 days.

Why They're Easy

• Radishes require basically zero tending once they've sprouted. (You do need to keep the soil moist at all times until they pop up.) I always recommend root crops to clients who are heading out of town. Plant your radishes, water every day for a week or two, go on vacation, and then come back to your radish harvest!
• Because they grow so quickly, you can plant them anytime you're expecting your temps to stay between 45 and 75°F for the next month or so. They're frost tolerant so you can plant them before your last frost in the spring and after your first frost in the fall. You might want to cover them during a freeze though.
• Radishes sometimes bump themselves up to the top of the soil when they're ready, which makes it super easy to know when to harvest them.

Grow This Easy Plant

If you want to try out growing a root crop, you've got to try radishes. I recommend French breakfast radishes. They're delicious and, at least in my experience, the easiest type to grow.

You'll grow radishes from seed. The hardest part about planting radishes is just spacing out the small seeds so that you don't have to come back and thin them later.

Parsley Is an Easy Herb to Grow

Parsley is one of my favorite herbs to grow in the garden. It doesn't take up much space but gives you so many harvests.

Why It's Easy

• Parsley is a biennial herb, which means, like kale, it wants to last two years in the garden. Again, when plants want to stay in the garden for a long time, they're willing to put up with just about anything.
• Parsley will give you leaves all season long.
• If it doesn't get extremely cold during the winter where you live, then your parsley will come back in the spring. Here in Nashville, my curly parsley plants, which are a bit hardier than flat-leaf ones, have survived two winters. I was harvesting parsley all winter long, even after 5 inches of snow.
• Parsley isn't typically affected by pests or disease.
• Every time you harvest from your parsley plant, it encourages the plant to grow more parsley right from the center of the plant.

Grow This Easy Plant

You can grow parsley from seed or buy a little plant from your local nursery. Parsley is a little slow to grow from seed, so I recommend buying a plant so that you can take your first parsley harvest, like, today, if you wanted to. Read more on how to grow this easy plant.

Sage Makes for Easy Herb Growing

Sage is one of the most forgiving herbs, and herbs are already pretty easy-going plants.

Why It's Easy

• Sage grows in almost any kind of light: full sun, partial shade, mostly shade, whatever. It only needs about 4 hours of sunlight a day to grow.
• It's also very forgiving when it comes to watering. It doesn't need a lot of water, but if you get a ton of rain where you live, it will do just fine.
• You can harvest from your sage over and over again, and it'll keep producing delicious leaves for you.
• Sage helps protect your other plants from pests like flea beetles, snails, and slugs. So growing sage is not only easy—it's also good for your entire garden!
• If ever your sage grows too woody, you can just give it a good prune and encourage young, fresh leaves to grow.

Grow This Easy Plant

Sage is pretty easy to grow from seed. You can also get a great ROI if you buy a little sage plant from the store. Learn how to grow and harvest sage.

Basil Is an Easy Herb to Add to Your Garden

Basil is an herb that only grows outdoors when there's no chance of frost. As long as it's nice and warm outside, basil will be super easy to grow and so prolific. Plus, there are so many fun types of basil you can grow that you won't be able to find at the grocery store.

Why It's Easy

• Basil is the easiest of all the herbs to grow from seed.
• Basil can grow anywhere—in the ground, in a raised bed, or in a pot. It only needs 4 hours of sun to produce flavorful leaves for you.
• All you have to do is harvest right below a leaf node, and you'll encourage your plants to grow bigger and bushier.
• Basil is an annual plant, which means it won't come back next year. That being said, it's super easy to get more basil plants. You can take some cuttings from your basil plants, root them, and make more plants! Or just let your basil flower at the end of the growing season so you can save your own seeds for next year.

Grow This Easy Plant

Sow basil seeds when there's no chance of frost, don't water the plants too much, and you'll get loads of harvests. Basil is a must-grow if you've had fails in the garden.

Beans Make Easy Vegetable Garden Filler Plants

Bush beans are a sure thing in the garden. I love to plant bush beans wherever I have an empty space in my raised bed to serve as ground cover. Each plant takes up less than half a square foot but will produce loads and loads of beans.

Why They're Easy

• Bean seeds cost like a penny each, and you just pop them right into the soil. You'll see growth within just a couple of days. I find it extremely satisfying how fast these seedlings burst through the soil.
• Beans don't really require any tending. Just keep them watered.
• Beans actually benefit plants growing nearby by fixing nitrogen in the soil.
• Beans go from seed to harvest in just 60 days.

Grow This Easy Plant

Start with seeds. You're going to get a ton of ROI on these seeds. They need basically no tender loving care, but they will give you a ton of produce for each and every seed that you plant. Read more on how to grow bush beans in your raised beds.

Swiss Chard Is an Extremely Low-Maintenance Plant

Swiss chard is another fantastically easy plant to grow. You wouldn't expect it to be easy because it's so beautiful (and beautiful things are usually high-maintenance), but that's just how Swiss chard is.

Why It's Easy

• It's another biennial, which means it wants to stay in the garden for at least two years. Swiss Chard can handle frost. It can also handle heat. So you can put it in the garden super early in the season. It'll last through the hottest part of the year and then it'll stay in the garden all the way until after you get your first frost each year.
• Swiss chard typically doesn't suffer from pests or disease, especially compared to other leafy greens.
• Swiss chard really doesn't need to be fertilized or anything. I just push some compost around the base every couple of months.

Grow This Easy Plant

The best way to get started growing Swiss chard is by buying a little plant from your local nursery. You're going to get so much bang for your buck because you can harvest from each plant again and again and again.

Lettuce Is Super Easy to Grow from Seed

Lettuce is only difficult if you try to grow it in the middle of summer. Lettuce loves cool weather, so if you give it that, it'll be so happy and easy to grow.

You can grow a ton of lettuce in a very small space. You can totally replace your grocery store lettuce about 45 days after you plant these seeds.

Why It's Easy

• Sowing lettuce seeds is the easiest thing ever. The first lettuce I ever grew came from seeds scattered by my toddler, if that tells you how easy it is to plant. All you have to do is drop some seeds on the surface of the soil—they don't even need to be buried. Then you'll keep them watered for the first two weeks so they sprout and grow.
• You can grow lettuce plants in shade. They only need 4 hours of sun to grow.
• Lettuce doesn't really need much tending besides regular watering. The best way to keep your plants healthy is actually by harvesting from them frequently.
• You can get at least two to three harvests from each plant, if not way more, before you have to start over.
• When your lettuce plants are done, you can let a couple go to seed and then save seeds for next year.

Grow This Easy Plant

Learn more about growing these super beginner-friendly plants.

Anyone Can Grow Arugula

Arugula is similar to lettuce in that it's super easy to plant and tend, but the best part about arugula is it grows for way more of the year. Arugula can grow when it's cool, when it's warm, when it's hot. In fact, I planted arugula seeds in my garden right before a big snow, and I had arugula popping up the second that snow melted.

Why It's Easy

• Arugula is not very picky about temperature. It’s way more heat-tolerant than lettuce, and it can even withstand some frost. 
• Arugula seeds are super easy to plant. Just like with lettuce, you can simply sprinkle them on top of the soil and then keep them watered for two weeks.
• It also grows really fast. You'll be eating fresh homegrown arugula in about 30 to 40 days.
• Many of the typical pests that attack your leafy greens are turned off by the peppery smell of arugula.

Grow This Easy Plant

Arugula is just overall a fast and easy plant that's sure to give even the most inexperienced of gardeners success. Check out our arugula growing guide. 

Chives Is Literally the Easiest Plant to Keep Alive

The plant that every single person can grow—even if they've failed at absolutely everything else—is chives. I'm not exaggerating when I say that chives is the easiest thing to grow period. A little pot of chives gave me my first gardening success ever. I hardly tended it, I had zero gardening knowledge or skill, but I grew way more chives than I could even think of using.

If you pick one plant from the list of 10, it's got to be this one.

Why It's Easy

• These plants don't care what you do to them. You can expose them to heat or extreme cold. You can ignore them for weeks. You can drench them, or you can let them dry out. They're going to keep on growing. These plants are insanely motivated to stay alive.
• Chives are perennials, so they'll pop right back up in the spring (they're usually among the first signs of life in your garden as winter fades). Those of you in warmer climates will actually have chives growing year round.
• You can harvest from your chives again and again. They just keep regrowing.
• When your chives plant grows too large after a year or two in the garden, you simply chop it in half and replant it. Now you have a bonus plant!
• Chives aren't just easy to grow. They actually make growing everything else around them easier! How? They act as a fantastic pest deterrent. I grow chives next to all my leafy greens to protect them from pests that don't like the oniony scent of chives.

Grow This Easy Plant

You can grow chives from seed, but if you've had a lot of gardening fails, give yourself a little break and just buy a chives plant. You won't be sorry. The one difficult thing about growing chives is actually getting it started because it's a little slow to grow from seed (and the seeds are minuscule).

Learn how to grow this super duper easy plant.

Fill Your Garden with These Easy Vegetables

You know that expression "Quitters never win"? Even if you've had tons of failures in the garden, don't quit. Try growing these 10 easy vegetables first. At least half, if not all, of these plants are going to be winners for you—I guarantee it!

Learn when to plant all these veggies by downloading our free Garden Calendar. You can customize the calendar based on where you're growing. All you have to do is give us two dates, and we'll tell you the rest. Trust me, getting the timing just right makes these easy plants even easier to grow.