10 Fast-Growing Summer Veggies + Flowers

It is July and you're thinking it's too late. It's done. I can't have a garden this season. It's just, it's over. I'll wait until 2025. I'll wait until next year. Then it'll probably be another year. No, we're not doing that. We are starting our garden right now because these are some super quick growing plants that you can plant right now in the middle of the summer no matter where you are. So let's get into it. So the very first plant that all of us can grow is arugula. Arugula is one of the easiest greens to grow in the garden. You can plant it from seed. Turns into this delicious green. It's so much better than the arugula you get from the grocery store and it's super fast especially when it's warm. You want to plant it underneath shade. You could grow it underneath the patio or porch and especially if you're growing in the middle of the summer and plant it directly from seed. Give each seed about three or four inches to grow to the full plant. Water it for two weeks and I'm telling you in about 30 days you're going to start harvesting your first leaves arugula. Not even exaggerating. So we're talking before the kids go back to school you're going to be eating some homegrown food. So arugula is a for sure all of us here have to grow it this summer. No excuses. Next up is beans. Beans are so fast growing. They're so easy to plant. Anyone can grow these. You can even get your kids to grow these if you've got some kids hanging around lying around somewhere. All right we all have those this summer. So beans you want to make sure that you're growing the right one for the particular season you're in. So if you're in a warm season you can grow like typical green beans like bush beans, contender beans. If you're in a hot season if it's hotter where you live you want to grow something like crowder peas or black eyed peas or lima beans. Those can handle the heat way more than those typical green beans can. If you want a fast production you want to grow a bush bean because a bush bean is going to grow up in about 45-60 days. It's going to create a ton of beans and then boom it's done. If you want to give like a lot of time for it to grow and you want to enjoy it into the fall you got plenty of time before your first frost then you want to grow a pole bean. A pole bean is just that. It's going to grow on a pole. You're going to need like a trellis or a support something like that for your vining uh bean to climb on and then it'll produce like a little bit of beans as it goes. But if you're wanting the quick win grow the bush bean. If you're in a hot season do something like a lima bean or a crowder pea or black eyed pea. So first we got our arugula then we got some beans. Now let's talk about some herbs. Basil quick quick win. By this point in the year you don't want to start with seed you want to just start with a plant. So you're going to go buy a basil plant from the store bring it home put it in a pot put it in a raised bed and boom you're off to the races. You're growing some basil. This will grow so well throughout the rest of the summer. Basil thrives in the hot weather. It's going to be too slow to start it from seed otherwise I would totally tell you to do that. But just grabbing that plant even from the grocery store you're going to get so much satisfaction growing and I'll give you a little tip. If you grab the top of your basil plant and you cut it off right above two leaf nodes when the leaf nodes are spreading out this way cut it off right there on that main stem the plant will grow out twice as big. You'll get twice as much basil from just that one plant that you grew that you bought from the store. Two more greens that I love to grow. At this point in July you want to start these from a plant as well. You're probably going to be able to find them at a local nursery or a plant stop and that is kale and Swiss chard. These two greens are what we call biennials. They're special. I repeat they're special. They're not like your other lettuce greens that only like it when it's cool. Kale and Swiss chard because they're biennials they like to stay in the garden for two years and so they will last through the heat of the summer. So these are great greens to just go by put in a pot put them under the shade put them in a place where they're not going to be too hot in the middle of the summer and you can have fresh greens that you cut for omelets and for sautés and for salads. You're going to be tasting fresh homegrown salad with kale and Swiss chard right away in the middle of summer. But we can also grow some fruit crops in the middle of summer and that's going to be cucumber squash and zucchini. So when it comes to fast growing fruit and crops the plants in the gourd family especially these three are the fastest. I've found that if I'm trying to grow these on a trellis or in the garden I'll get cucumber squash and zucchini way faster than I will any tomatoes peppers or eggplant. So we're going to hold off on those for next year if we're just starting in July unless you've got a really long time before your first frost. But cucumber squash and zucchini in the middle of July here's the good news you can start them from seed. In fact they're going to do great if you start them from seeds. You'll put the seed right on the edge of your bed. I like to grow squash and zucchini over the edge of my garden so it doesn't take up so much space in the interior. I get loads and loads of squash falling over the edge of the bed and it doesn't take up the planting space for other plants but I can get so much fruit from it. For a cucumber you want to vine that over an arch trellis or up an obelisk trellis. Same thing start from seed you will have fruit to eat in about 60 days. Finally flowers. There are lots of flowers that you can grow starting this time of year. My favorite one to grow is zinnias. Zinnias grow from seed really fast and they can tolerate hotter temperatures. So if you don't have any flowers growing in your garden yet do not give up. Let's start with zinnias. You could also try out some nasturtiums. Nasturtiums grow pretty quickly directly from seed and you've probably got plenty of time for those nasturtiums to grow up create leaves and beautiful flowers. And bonus points nasturtiums are a pest deterrent. So actually they're a pest attractant that keeps the pests away from the rest of your garden. So I love growing nasturtiums as what I call a trap crop. They're beautiful but they will welcome the pests into those flowers and then those pests will leave the rest of your vegetable plants alone. Which I don't know about you but that sounds like a really good idea to me. All right so there you have it. It may be the middle of summer it may be July and you're thinking it is way too late but there are still so many plants you can grow even in this summer season before we head to fall. That's going to be a totally different video. There's so many things you can grow in the fall but these are the things you can grow really quickly right here now in the middle of summer. All of these will give you a harvest either right away if you buy the plant or within 45 to 60 days if you buy and plant the seed. The trick is you can't just watch this video you have to actually do it. So go get yourself some seeds put those into the garden today and make your garden happen this year not next.