I like to grow vegetables and herbs in my garden but am against following god-given rules of greenthumb like planting seeds first in a pot on which week of which month and leave some inches between the seeds and preparing soil mixing this kind of soil and that in what percentage, etc. I am also encouraging you to start agrochemical-free organic gardening in one of the most sloppiest way.
First of all, something anybody can grow.
This is also called as green beefsteak plant and a perilla family and green one. It is often used to add color to sashimi and sushi plate. This family is tough growing and doesn't choose the place to grow. You see this growing in many fields even though you don't remember planting them. You don't need to do anything. Just watch them grow. It's like a bush. The hard stem holds itself up right.
Towards summer you can get many leaves from one bush. Pick them as you need. It has high nutritional values. It's a health food. Towards fall, leaves get brown spots and get hard.
After it blooms, you can get many tiny black seeds in the bags. Keep them for next year. Each inchy-binchy black seeds turn into a tough bush the year after.
Next, carrots. Have you ever tasted sweet taste of carrots just out of the ground? This aroma is the luxury of home gardening.
Carrots are, in other way of looking, roots. So dig the soil deeper for the carrots, providing them more place to grow. Plant them on the mountain. Carrots will have long roots and get bigger.
First you will see leaves looking like parsley and then the orange heads will come barely to the surface. Keep them not too close to each other, so that they have more space to grow. One option is to pull the small ones. Don't throw away.Eat them in salad or sautethem with butter
It is called in Japanese "20-day radish." As the name implies, this plant takes little time and care. Usually we need to dig the soil deep so that the white Japanese daikon radish grows deep to the ground. However, reddish radish makes its roots like a bulb of an onion. Shallow patch is enough.
Go pick seeds and scatter them to the patch. Blanket them with a little bit of soil. In several days, you will see cute two leaves sprouting. When other veggies are having growing stage, radish is coming to be picked. Pick them while the root is a size smaller than a ping-pong ball. Leaving it under the summer's harsh sunshine too long makes it grow but sucking up the liquid. The texture would get to be like an old mushy apple.
Radish leaves are edible. SauteŽing or frying. Also you could add in miso soup. Don't waste the harvest of the nature!
This grows strings like peas. If you buy seedlings, just plant them in the soil. It prefers sunlight. Cucumbers grow sideways... unless you make use of the strings. These strings curl and try to grab something on the way to hang onto. You could save space if you stick a pole nearby. It will climb up the pole. In this way, all you need is one planter. You don't need a big patch of land.
Cukes have a cute yellow flowers. Enjoy them and soon they will have little green cukes like Vienna sausages growing. Pick when the size is of your preference. While fresh, include them in your dinner salad. They may grow crooked or funny looking. They may not look like the ones on the display at the nearby grocery store. But that's the natural look. Each one of them has its own personality. Enjoy.
Strings come out of peas. It grows like a little jungle, tangling strings to each other. Put posts in nearby to support the stem.
Strong growing, tough and knowing survival, beans and peas are nick-named as "meat of the field" for its rich protein content.