Best Summer Garden Vegetables and Flower Varieties to Grow ~ Homestead and Chill

Last Updated on January 8, 2024

Tomatoes, cucumbers, sunflowers, oh my! Are you looking for ideas and inspiration on what to grow in your summer garden? Here are some of the best summer vegetable varieties to grow, along with our top-choice annual flowers and herbs too! This post will explore the most popular warm season crops, including a list of our exact favorite varieties, photos, and why we love them so much.

I’ve been gardening for over 15 years now, and have grown hundreds of different varieties of veggies. While it’s fun to experiment with a few new-to-me cultivars each season, these are the best summer vegetable varieties that I always grow year-after-year. They’re the most dependable, productive, beautiful and delicious! I’ll update the list as we discover new “winners” too.

Jump straight to the list here

The center of a gravel pathway lined with pavers has raised beds along each side of the pathway full of sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, calendula, bachelor buttons, squash and pole beans. There are so many best summer vegetables to grow, your garden will be overflowing. — I love a good summer garden jungle!

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What are warm season crops?

As the name suggests, warm season crops are those that thrive in warm conditions – perfect for the summer garden! This includes tomatoes, peppers, beans, eggplant, cucumbers, melons, summer squash (e.g. zucchini), winter squash (e.g. butternut or pumpkins), along with tender annual herbs and flowers. These plants are generally not frost-tolerant, so they will require frost protection as needed.

In contrast, cool season crops include vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, radishes, peas, leafy greens, and more. These are best to grow during the spring or fall in most places. Garlic is a unique one. It’s planted in the fall but overwinters, resumes growth in spring, and is harvested the following summer.

We grow the vast majority of our cool season crops in our fall-winter garden, though I like to plant some in spring too. If we’re lucky (and choose heat-tolerant varieties) many of our spring crops will last into summer here. So, I’ve included a handful of my favorite spring vegetable varieties on this list too!

An image of a garden harvest, many wicker baskets are huddled around each other with a bounty of fresh carrots, beets, summer squash, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, chard, lettuce, berries, figs, basil, and various flowers. — A colorful early summer harvest

Need summer garden seeds?

As you explore this list of summer vegetables to grow, you may notice that many of them are from High Mowing Organic Seeds – where we get the majority of our seeds these days. High Mowing is a fantastic small certified organic seed company that offers a wide variety of high-quality veggie, flower and herb seeds. Yet we like to spread the love and shop with a few other seed companies too. See a full list of places to buy organic and heirloom garden seeds here.

If you’re new to growing from seed, visit our Seed Starting 101 guide for tips for success. But there is no shame in buying started seedlings! Learn how to pick the best seedlings at the nursery here.

It's Time to Grow with High Mowing Organic Seeds

Two flowering artichokes in the foreground with a number of raised garden beds beyond full of a variety of squash, carrots, melons, flowers, and a number of other vegetables. — Be sure to check out some of the more unique things we like to grow in our summer garden at the end of this list, including artichokes, potatoes, turmeric, and more. We always like to let a few of our artichokes flower for the bees… and beauty!

Choosing the Best Summer Vegetable Varieties

The goal of this post is to introduce you to our favorite summer vegetables, flowers, and herbs to grow – and perhaps help you narrow down your selection this season! Yet there are SO many interesting options out there, so I always encourage you to have fun and experiment too.

We’ve selected our list of the “best” warm season crop varieties based on years of experience and experimentation. They grow and produce reliably well in our garden, which is located in zone 9 on the temperate central coast of California.

Of course, every variety may not perform the same in every garden… yet many of our friends in different zones have success growing these same summer vegetable varieties in their gardens too! Similarly, High Mowing (where we get most of our seeds) is based out of Vermont, but their varieties grow exceptionally well in our California garden.

Remember to read plant descriptions carefully and choose things that suit your needs. For instance, we look for veggie varieties with natural resistance to powdery mildew – something that is otherwise rampant in our area. Folks with shorter growing seasons will especially want to pay attention to “days to maturity” and select varieties that will ripen faster.

Seed containers, packs of seeds, seed catalogues, and a planting calendar are littered across a walnut table. — Going through our seed storage boxes and catalogs to see what we’re going to grow this season

When to Start or Plant Summer Garden Crops

It’s best to start most warm season crops from seed indoors in late winter to early spring, while it’s still too cold for them to be outside. Then seedlings are planted outside later in spring, once the soil warms and risk of frost has past.

The exact time to plant your summer garden depends on the type of crop and your growing zone. Refer to the Homestead and Chill planting calendars to figure out the best garden planting schedule for you garden. We have calendars for every growing zone!

Starting seeds indoors or buying nursery seedlings provides several weeks (or even months) head start on the growing season, which means you’ll be harvesting sooner too! However, some summer garden vegetable crops grow best when their seeds are directly-sown outside, such as beans and root vegetables.

Learn when to plant seeds by using this planting calendar for Zone 9, it has many different vegetables lined up on the left side of the chart and all of the months of the year listed on the top of the chart. Each vegetable has different colored lines that correspond with when to start seeds inside, transplant outdoors, and plant seeds outside, along with corresponding last frost date and first frost date where applicable. The lines start left to right, showing what months you should do each particular task depending on the season and where you live. — Not sure when to start seeds or plant seedings in your garden? Get free seed starting calendars for EVERY zone here.

Best Summer Vegetables to Grow

Without further ado, here a full list of our favorite summer vegetable varieties to grow, along with annual flowers and herbs to follow. I’ve also included quick growing tips or links to helpful resources in each section.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are arguably one of the most popular summer vegetables to grow, and for good reason! They’re versatile in the kitchen, fairly easy to grow, and taste like summer. Tomatoes also come in many fun colors, shapes and sizes!

As you browse the tomato varieties below, note that we grow mostly indeterminate (vining) tomatoes on a trellis, but usually grow a couple determinate (bush) varieties in large DIY tomato cages as well.

Our favorite tomato varieties:

Sakura. These extra-large cherry tomatoes (1 oz fruit, more like saladette) are prolific, delicious, and resist cracking. They performed SO well for us last year! Indeterminate.
Pink Boar. Beautiful, petite (2-4 oz) wine-colored fruits with metallic green stripes that grow consistently well – even in challenging climates. Indeterminate.
Mountain Merit. Excellent classic red slicing tomato with firm flesh and 8-10 oz fruit. Productive and highly disease resistant. My favorite determinate variety of tomato!
Granadero. Our go-to Roma style tomato variety, good for fresh eating as well as preserving and homemade tomato sauce. Large plum tomatoes 4-5 oz in size. Produces abundant and continued yields throughout the season. Offers high disease resistance. Indeterminate.
Green Zebra Tomato. This tomato variety is SO pretty, with a unique sweet and tangy flavor. The 4-5 ounce striped green fruit stay green, but turn slightly yellow-green as they ripen. Indeterminate.
Plum Regal Tomato. Another great high-yielding plum paste tomato (Roma-type). The 4 oz. fruits that are excellent for sauces and canning! Good natural disease resistance. Determinate.
Costoluto Tomato is one of our new favorite tomatoes to grow. The deeply ridged, lobed red fruit are so unique and beautiful! These indeterminate plants grow well in hot and mild climates alike. Great for fresh eating or easy roasted tomato sauce.

Related: See our Tomato Grow Guide for our top tips for success. Or, visit this post to learn 7 ways to support, train, and prune tomatoes – including our awesome DIY tomato trellis system!

A variety of tomatoes are lined up in rows in order of tomato variety and color. Large red tomatoes, smaller yellow tomatoes, red and green blush, to smaller red and orange cherry tomatoes.

Two raised beds each have a large A-frame tomato trellis support structure sitting on the top of the beds. Green plants stakes are spaced evenly and in a vertical fashion with a plant at each stake. The tomato plants have almost reached the top of the 7 foot support structure. Basil plants and zinnia are planted in the foreground of the tomatoes. — Our DIY tomato trellis system (tutorial here).

A hand is holding a large red tomato with fluted edges. Below are two wicker baskets full of a variety of red tomatoes. Tomatoes are a quintessential summer vegetable to grow. — Pretty Costoluto tomatoes

Summer and Winter Squash

Despite the potentially misleading name, winter squash is a warm season crop too. It’s planted in spring and grown during the summertime – just like zucchini. In fact, winter squash is one of my favorite summer vegetables to grow! It’s simply called winter squash because it stores for a long time post-harvest, but it’s not frost tolerant.

Summer Squash

Dunja Zucchini. Our go-to green zucchini variety. The plants are beautiful, prolific, and naturally resistant to powdery mildew!
Goldy Zucchini. Long and slender bright yellow zucchini fruit that resists greening.
Green Machine Squash. A prolific classic green zucchini with exceptional disease resistance.
Stardust Zucchini. Another productive green zucchini variety with pretty lightly speckled fruit.
Butta Squash. A very prolific straight summer squash, aptly named for its smooth creamy texture and light yellow color. A repeat favorite summer vegetable to grow for many, many years – but it’s been more difficult to find seeds lately.

Winter Squash

Nutter Butter Butternut. Our go-to classic butternut squash variety, which produces delicious and abundant medium-small fruit. One year we harvested 28 squash (over 50 pounds) from just TWO Nutter Butter plants! It’s described to “reliably mature in regions that have trouble ripening butternuts”.
Delicata Squash. With it’s edible thin skin, delicata squash is one of the easiest to cook and enjoy! I love a good classic delicata variety. These vining plants produce oblong striped fruit with superbly tender, sweet flesh. You can also grow more compact Bush delicata too.
Autumn Frost Butternut Squash. This specialty butternut has a unique frosted appearance and rich earthy flavor. It has been highly productive in our garden, and is naturally resistant to powdery mildew!
Sunshine Kabocha Squash. A classic bright orange squatty kabocha squash. This variety is more productive than some other kabocha varieties, growing many deliciously-sweet and nutty fruit on compact semi-bush plants.
Winter Sweet Squash. This is a unique and beautiful pale gray-blue kabocha squash variety. It has an exceptionally long storage life, and has a sweet complex flavor that improves in storage. The one downside is that these guys only produce about 2 squash per plant.

A wicker basket full of butternut squash, a couple vines from the plant are hanging over the raised garden bed and are bordering the basket. Two pairs of boots, one blue and one green are standing next to the basket. Even though butternut squash is called winter squash it is a great summer vegetable to grow. — About half of the Nutterbutter butternut squash we harvested last year. The vines were so prolific!

Three raised garden beds are shown overflowing with various vegetable plants and flowers. The main plant that is center stage is a zucchini variety squash plant, it is quite large and has white or gray molting on its leaves. Various squash fruit are growing, poking their flowered ends towards the sky. The other beds contain onions, basil, kale, and beans, along with marigolds, zinnia, calendula and borage. — Dunja zucchini – prolific, PM-resistant, and beautiful naturally variegated leaves.

A hand is holding out a harvested winter squash that is orangish brown in color. Beyond, is a raised bed with many harvested winter squash inside of a wicker basket as well as squash lined up on top of the raised bed and soil. — Autumn Frost Butternut, plus a few blue-grey Winter Sweet kabocha in the background

Beans

Beans have slowly become one of my favorite summer vegetables to grow over the years. Who doesn’t love a fresh snappy homegrown green bean? Plus, garden trellises look so magical dripping with long pole beans in the summer!

Quick tip: soak bean seeds in water for several hours before direct-sowing them outside for a speedy germination. Pop over to our bean grow guide for even more tips, and be sure to come back and try our easy pickled dilly green beans later!

Pole Beans: Pole beans (vining) usually take longer to grow and bear fruit than bush beans, but produce more and over a longer season. My favorite are Northeaster Pole Beans: a long, flat, tender, early-maturing Romano variety with great texture and buttery flavor. They stay tender even if they’re left on the vine to get super long! I also really love to grow these pretty Blue Coco Pole Beans. The purple adds a special pop to your harvest basket.
Bush Beans are great for succession sowing for extended harvests all season long. I also like to tuck bush beans between larger summer garden vegetables to fill empty spaces. In addition to classic green beans (like Provider or Jade bush beans), we’re particularly fond of beautiful purple and white Dragon Langerie, red-streaked Borlotto, tender Gold Rush Yellow Wax, and flat tender Roma type bush beans.

An outstretched arm has four long pole beans splayed out from their elbow to their palms to illustrate the length of the bean. Pole beans are a great summer vegetable to grow. — Northeaster pole beans. They stay incredibly tender and crisp, even when they’re this long!

DeannaCat is standing underneath an arch trellis of pole beans. She is holding a wicker basket full of green and purple beans that have just been harvested.

Eggplant and Peppers

Eggplant and peppers are both part of the nightshade family. These summer vegetables grow well in hot conditions, in containers, and can even be overwintered as perennials with the right care! We eat a lot of fresh eggplant in the summer, and love to preserve peppers many ways: fermented hot sauce, refrigerator pickled peppers, homegrown chili powder, and more.

Eggplant

Little Finger. An early and prolific eggplant variety that produces clusters of 3 to 6 inch slender dark purple fruit with wonderfully thin skin.
Ping Tung Long. An Asian variety of eggplant that produces long and slender fruit 12-14 inches long with thin skin and bright lilac color. Ping Tung is my favorite type of eggplant for stir fries and sautés.
Piccolo. Modest 3 to 5 inch ovate (egg-shaped) eggplant with stunning purple and white variegated striping. They’re so pretty! The plants are very productive variety that will bear fruit over a long season.
Black Beauty Eggplant. A high-yielding Italian eggplant with bell shaped 5 to 6 inch fruit that is deep purple in color. This classic variety of eggplant is ideal for cutting into thick slices to grill or bake, including eggplant parmesan.

Peppers

Black Magic is my favorite jalapeño variety! They grow so well for us, producing a TON of large dark green peppers. Black Magic is less spicy compared to other jalapeño varieties, perfect to grill and add to meals without excessive heat. I also like to make Cowboy Candy with them.
Red Ember is a type of Cayenne pepper. The slender long red fruit offer a delicate heat, great for using fresh, in cooking, or making homemade chili powder.
Glow is my top-choice bell pepper. The big beautiful orange peppers are so fruity and sweet.
Shishito peppers are always a must-grow summer vegetable for us. They’re SO good pan-blistered!
Red Picnic is a great little sweet mini bell pepper. Perfectly snackable!
Aji Rico is one of Aaron’s favorites. It’s a medium-hot chili red pepper with thin walls and sweet citrus-like notes.
Banana peppers or Hungarian Wax peppers usually make it to our summer garden too. They make excellent pepperoncini-style pickled peppers.

An eggplant plant is hanging over the edge of a raised bed due to the weight of the fruit that is growing on it. Long and slender eggplants are hanging from its branches. — Prolific **Ping Tung Long** eggplant

A flat lay image of a wicker basket full of a variety of sweet peppers which vary in color and shape from orange, to light and dark green, to red. A large wooden bowl is next to it with a variety of hot peppers varying in color and shape, some of them are purple, green, and red.

A hand is holding a small eggplant fruit that is a mottled white and purple. Below is a wooden bowl full of harvest eggplants from long and slender with deep purple hues, to long and slender fruit that is lighter purple in color, to smaller, more oblong eggplant that is molted purple and whit in color. — Pretty **Piccolo** eggplant

A close up image of a jalapeno chili plant with many dark green to black chilis hanging from the plants branches. Peppers of all varieties are a great summer vegetable to grow.

Melons and Cucumber

I figured I’d lump these two juicy warm season crops together as well. Cucumbers and melon are part of the same cucurbit family and have fairly similar growing requirements. Learn how to grow cucumbers here, including our favorite cucumber trellis ideas! Melon plants require more space than cucumbers, but can be grown up trellises too. Just be sure to support the hanging fruit with little hammocks or nets.

Melon

Blacktail Mountain Watermelon. Dark green round 6-10 pound melons with crisp, sweet flesh that ripen well even in cool or short seasons. Despite our coastal climate and cool summers, these grow very well in our garden!
True Love Melon. A high-sugar, cantaloupe-like melon with great texture that produces later in the season. High powdery mildew resistance.
Sugar Baby Watermelon. Perfectly round juicy and sweet melons that weigh 6-12 lbs with solid green rind and dark red flesh. Great for short seasons and smaller spaces.
Sivan Melon. Another cantaloupe-type musk melon variety, which bears super sweet personal-size fruit. Great resistance to powdery mildew – a huge plus for us!

Cucumber

Manny. Our favorite cucumber variety, both for taste and production! The vining plants produce thin-skinned 5-7 inch crisp fruit. Early maturing, high yielding, and good disease resistance. Self-pollinates.
Tasty Green. An Asian burpless variety that produces super long 9” fruit with thin skin and sweet flesh. Produces heavy yields. Best results when trellised and grown with other cucumber varieties for cross-pollination.
We’ve tried several varieties of pickling cucumbers over the years, but none of them have wowed us. What is your go-to pickling cucumber variety? Let us know in the comments below!

A raised be is fully of watermelon plants, their long vines are taking up much of the space while there are 4 or 5 baby watermelons growing amongst the vines. In the middle of the bed is a zinnia flower growing tall amongst the vining melon plants. — A bed of Blacktail Mountain watermelon with zinnia, marigold, and calendula interplanted.

Aaron is holding a freshly harvested baby watermelon amongst raised beds full of a variety of flowers and vegetable plants. Melons are a great summer vegetable to grow! — Mr. DeannaCat lookin’ mighty fine with his big melon

Annual Flowers

I love planting annual flowers in our raised beds mixed amongst the summer vegetables. They add a beautiful pop of color, draw in pollinators, and some even deter pests! Learn more about companion planting here, and a full list of our top 23 plants for pollinators here.

Calendula, my favorite flower and medicinal herb to grow. See: “All About Calendula: How to Grow, Harvest, Dry & Use Calendula Flowers” to learn more. Resina, Strawberry Blonde, Orange King, and Pacific Beauty are go-to calendula varieties in our garden.
Marigolds. Did you know these repel root knot nematodes? We love to grow classic French marigolds along with these adorable Tangerine Gem marigolds.
Sunflowers. Evening Colors, Lemon Queen, Goldy Double, Mammoth, Strawberry Blonde, Velvet Queen and Autumn Beauty are some of my favorite sunflower varieties. We enjoy a lot of branching, multi-headed types.
Zinnias are a close runner-up to calendula, and a monarch butterfly favorite! Our zinnia seed collection includes Giant Coral, Purple Prince, Giant Yellow, Benary’s Giant Salmon Rose, Queen Red Lime, Oklahoma Carmine and Gold, and many more.
Nasturtium. In addition to attracting pollinators, both nasturtium leaves and flowers are edible! They taste peppery like arugula. Compact nasturtium varieties (like Alaska Mix) are great as companion plants in the raised beds. Vining varieties like this Nasturtium Blend look amazing trailing down the outside of a bed, as sprawling groundcover, or trained up a trellis.
Cosmos bring such a cheery vibe to the garden, and our resident goldfinches love to eat the seeds! My favorite cosmos varieties include Double Click, Seashell cosmos, Cupcake, Apricotta, and Sensation blend.
Chamomile. We grow an entire raised bed full of chamomile to make ultra-healing and hydrating calendula-chamomile face oil for our shop, including classic German Chamomile, Zloty Lan, and Bodegold varieties.
Other Flower Favorites: Bachelor’s buttons (Polka Dot Bachelor Button and dwarf Jubilee Gem), Opopeo Amaranth, Lion’s Mouth snapdragons, Goldilocks Rudbeckia, and Roggli Riesen strawflowers.

For cultivation tips on all these beauties, see: 7 Best Easy Annual Flowers to Grow from Seed

A purple flowering statice plant is in the foreground while a raised bed of artichokes, sunflowers, and cosmos are beyond. — Statice is in the foreground (perennial here) with annual cosmos, sunflowers, bachelor’s buttons and marigolds in the beds beyond.

A bachelors button plant and a zinnia on the other side line a walkway in the garden, almost covering it. Beyond is a trellis with some green beans growing on it. There are so many plants that can be the best summer vegetable to grow. — Companion flowers everywhere

A raised bed full of annual chamomile plants with many yellow and white blooms. — Cheerful chamomile. Learn how to grow, harvest, dry and use chamomile in this guide!

A close up image of a salmon pink color zinnia with a number of fluffy flowering heads in full bloom. — Salmon Rose Giant Zinnia

Annual Herbs

We already have many established patches of herbs that grow as perennials here, including sage, rosemary, oregano, bay laurel, lemon balm, mint, and thyme. That means the only annual herbs we usually plant are basil, dill, and cilantro including:

Dill Delight and Bouquet dill – ideal for adding to homemade pickles. They self-seed in our garden, so we rarely have to plant more!
Cilantro is always nice to have on hand for fresh homegrown summer salsa, tacos, and more. If allowed to go to seed, cilantro will also self-sow and keep coming back… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing!
Basil: We usually grow a couple classic Genovese types (such as Prospera Italian Large Leaf and Rutgers Devotion) along with pretty purple basil.

We always grow at least 6 to 8 basil plants so we can stock up the freezer with enough Besto Pesto for the whole year, along with dried basil leaves for the pantry. Learn how to grow bushy basil to harvest all season long here. (Hint: pruning young seedlings and routinely cutting back established plants are key!)

A dill umbel is being held to show the top portion of the flowering seed head. — Bouquet dill umbels, ready to spice up a jar of homemade pickles!

Aaron is holding a large bowl of freshly harvested basil that is both green and purple in color. Basil is one of the best summer vegetables to grow.

Spring Vegetables: Brassicas, Root Veggies and More

As I mentioned earlier, we grow the vast majority of our cool season crops in our fall-winter garden. Yet I like to plant out a handful of cool season crops in the spring too, specifically choosing ones that I know stand a chance to last through early summer. For instance, certain varieties of kale or Swiss chard are more heat tolerant (less likely to bolt) than some of our other favorite leafy greens.

Root Veggies

Remember, it’s best to direct sow root vegetable seeds rather than start them indoors! Root veggies don’t take kindly to transplanting.

Carrots. We always grow several different varieties of carrots including Dolciva, Cosmic Purple, Naval, Scarlet Nantes, Bollin, and Bangor. Get tips on successfully growing carrots in our beginner’s guide.
Beets. My favorite beet variety is Boro beets, by far! They’re super sweet, produce excellent leafy greens, and can be harvested anywhere from 2 to 6+ inches, perfect to gradually harvest as you need them over time! Learn how to grow beets here.
Radishes are another spring garden staple. Some of our top-choice varieties include purple Bravo daikons, attractive and reliable Pink Beauty, and juicy, mild White Daikon radishes. This post will teach you about growing radishes from seed to table.

DeannaCat is standing next to a raised bed full of growing carrots and beets. She is holding a large bunch of freshly harvested carrots by their greens. — Harvesting carrots in the early summer garden

A hand is holding up three large red beets with their greens still attached. — Boro beets, my current favorite variety.

Brassicas

Cabbage: We like to plant Expect cabbage in late winter for an early summer harvest. It grow dense, uniformly round green heads and has notable heat tolerance. I also like to plant Caraflex cabbage in spring. The unique petite conical (pointed) heads can usually beat the heat since they mature in only 68 days!
Broccoli. Belstar broccoli is a trusty broccoli variety we seem to come back to year after year. It matures fairly early and then continues to produce decent little side shoots after the main head is harvested.
Kohlrabi. I love this alien-like veggie! It’s so uniquely cool-looking, and delicious too! Kohlrabi tastes like a super sweet, crisp, juicy inner portion of a good broccoli stem. Kordial, Kolibri, and Kossak kohlrabi are a few varieties we often grow.

Leafy Greens

Lacinato kale. Dazzling Blue lacinato is our go-to slow-bolting variety of kale… and it’s darn beautiful!
Swiss Chard. I have yet to find a chard I love more than Peppermint swiss chard (named for its candy-striped stalks, not flavor!) but we also grow this gorgeous yellow-stemmed Sunset Chard every season too. Both are fairly heat tolerant; they grow year-round here.
Joi Choi Bok Choy. Our powerhouse and number 1 favorite green to grow (and one of our top crops to grow, period!) The big thick juicy stalks and open heads are perfect for cut-and-come-again or perpetual harvesting. It doesn’t love hot weather, but is far more slow-bolting than most varieties of bok choy.

A hand is touching a large green cabbage that is growing, it is close to harvest time. If the temperatures aren't too high, growing cabbage is a great summer vegetable to grow. — Expect cabbage. Check out our cabbage grow guide here!

A raised bed full of swiss chard and celery is in the foreground with a number of raised beds in the background with a variety of plants growing in them from eggplant and tomatoes to onions and cabbage. — Peppermint Swiss chard always grows right through our temperate summers!

Other Fun Crops to Grow

Sugar Snap Peas are always growing in our spring and early summer garden! If you need an easy and inexpensive trellis for growing peas, beans, or any other vining plant, pop over to our DIY trellis tutorial.
Potatoes. We always pre-order several different varieties of seed potatoes from High Mowing, which generally ship out during the spring. We love growing potatoes in large durable fabric grow bags, which means we can always find some space for them! Interested in growing your own spuds? Learn how we grow potatoes in containers here.
Onions. I love onions! They’re one of my favorite spring or summer vegetables to grow. Walla Walla, Rossa Di Milano red onions, and Calibra Spanish onions are a few varieties that do well for us. When growing onions, it’s crucial to choose the right variety for your latitude – short day, long day, or intermediate day onions. I prefer to start from seed or seedlings rather than sets. Visit our onion grow guide for more info and tips for success.
Artichokes. We have several established Wonder artichokes growing in our garden. Artichokes can grow as perennials in zones 8-11, and as annuals in lower zones. Learn about growing artichoke plants, and don’t miss our delicious easy baked artichokes recipe with garlic, lemon and herbs.
Turmeric. We love to grow our own turmeric, which is easy to do in containers in any zone! Learn more here. Turmeric needs a nice early start (late winter to early spring), grows all summer through fall, and is harvested before the first winter frost.

Aaron and DeannaCat are standing next to each other, each is holding a large wooden bowl of freshly harvested potatoes of differing varieties. Potatoes are a great summer vegetable to grow. — Our 2022 spud harvest. This was early September, and we we’re still enjoying them in January!

Dozens of hands of freshly harvested turmeric rhizomes are lined up along the edge of a concrete patio with their greens still attached to the top. Beyond is a large wooden bowl with more harvested rhizomes that have had their greens cut off. Even though turmeric is harvested before frost hits, it's a great summer vegetable to grow. — Homegrown turmeric harvest, grown in wine barrels

DeannaCat standing next to a raised bed full of freshly harvest onions that are still laying on the soil. She is holding three large onions with their greens still attached in each hand. — So many beautiful onions harvested! We started these seeds in January, transplanted in late February, and harvested in September to cure and store (though some were ready earlier, we also harvested many to enjoy throughout the summer too)

A garden plot plan drawing with rectangles for raised beds with letters written inside of each bed as well as a key at the bottom with A-Z and a corresponding vegetable next written to it. — Making a plan in advance helps SO much come transplanting day, and also helps me guide just how much seed to start of each thing. I also keep these for future reference and crop rotation. Get your own printable plot plan templates in our Free Garden Planning Toolkit here!

And that concludes this list of our favorite summer vegetables to grow.

Decisions, decisions… Sometimes the seemingly endless options of plants and varieties can feel overwhelming, but I hope this helps you narrow down your selection! I also hope you found a few fun or new warm season crops to try this year. Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments below, and thanks for tuning in today. Cheers to a bountiful season ahead!

Other Useful Resources to Explore:

26 Comments

Erin

February 16, 2023 at 7:18 am Reply

Love hearing about it all!
Curious if you plan to grow full size fruit trees in your orchard, or if you plan to use pruning techniques to keep the trees smaller (and get more total trees in!). I fell in love with all the videos from Tom Spellman / Backyard Orchard Culture from Dave Wilson Nursery and it inspired us. Their videos combined with Ann Ralph’s book “Grow a Little Fruit Tree” gave us the knowledge we needed to pack 25-30 fruit trees in our urban size plot (less than a 1/3 acre, with other established trees also). Love that keeping the trees small gives us more varieities to choose from! I’m not affiliated in any way with those experts – just excited about getting a lot of fruit trees in a city lot!
- Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
  
  February 16, 2023 at 10:45 am Reply
  
  Hi Erin, it’s great to hear you have been inspired to grow fruit trees in a modest sized city lot! For our new orchard, we are going for about 12 to 13 feet between fruit trees, so yes, we will have to prune them and keep them a modest size, however, they should still produce a lot of fruit. We are right there with you though on growing more varieties of trees, even if they are smaller to maximize variety and space out your harvests depending on the fruit and varietal. Thanks for sharing and have fun growing!
Kristin

January 30, 2023 at 11:29 am Reply

Love this post – so helpful & inspiring! I’ve been refining my High Mowing Seeds order for 2 weeks. Today I finally tried to submit my order with the discount code (today is 1/30/23) and it says the code isn’t valid. I checked it several times. Thought it was good to the end of the month. Thanks.
- Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
  
  January 31, 2023 at 9:47 am Reply
  
  Hi Kristin, the code should work through the 31st of January, the code also only works if you spend $50 or more as well. Hope that helps and reach out if you are having any other issues.
Maria

January 27, 2023 at 1:04 pm Reply

I love this post! Really want to incorporate more flowers/pollinators into the garden this year. Melons too. I hope we see a post on that.

Also, I’d love to find the source of your garden boots. The ground is still *saturated* from our NorCal rains and I’m trying to remove some very thorny olallieberry vines out by the roots. Apparently I have zero footware to accomplish this. Yours look perfect!
- Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
  
  January 28, 2023 at 8:16 am Reply
  
  Hi Maria, adding more flowers and pollinator plants will definitely set off your garden space when everything is in full bloom! Deanna uses Merry People boots for outside in the garden and they do a great job of keeping your feet dry and protected although I wouldn’t necessarily call them a work boot specifically. We have been using them for a number of years and they are incredibly comfortable. Hope that helps and good luck with your upcoming tough job of removing those old vines!

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