by Candace Williams

Created on: May 23, 2008   Last Updated: May 12, 2012

Green beans, peas, potatoes and summer squash are good vegetables for a beginner to grow. These are good plants to start from seed which even a small child can usually be pretty successful at getting from planting to reaping. I started my children on these plants from seed and a tomato plant usually not started from seed when they were about five years old.

The garden usually was one or two old tires filled with good earth. I traced the shape of the tire on the ground then flipped it out of the way. We dug out the earth so the tire could be partly below ground level and added some compost or potting soil. Then in the soft earth I put the seeds and covered them with the soft earth.

• The Earliest Garden Vegetable

The quickest to sprout and produce an easily recognizable plant is peas. Peas are very tolerant of cold weather so they can be put in the ground as soon as snow is gone in the north. The seeds will send up little shoots as quick as the soil warms up enough. Then the little plant will alternately grow and wait as the weather turns from warm to cold and back to warm in the spring. A little trellis of some kind sill be needed to allow the peas to grow up in the air or the vines will sprall on the ground.

• Easy to Spot As Well As Quick To Come Up

Beans are the next quickest plant to pop out of the ground and also produce a plant with has big leaves and is fairly easy to spot. You will see the split seed come up out of the ground and the first leaves will be attached. the second leaves will follow quickly. Beans come in bush variety and climbing variety. They also come in yellow wax or green colors as well as several hues of shelling beans. I like to grow some green and some yellow. The yellow wax beens start out green and change to yellow when they are big enough to harvest. All beans are easy to grow and fun to eat raw and cooked. Climbing beans need a trellis of some kind to climb on as do the peas. They will not do well if left sprawling on the ground. Sometimes I have made a trellis for them that looks like the frame of a teepee by leaning three or more sticks together and tieing the tops with some twine.

• Beautiful Flowers and Fruit

Summer squash should be planted after the soil is quite warm and frosts are a thing of the past. They will produce beautiful showy orange blossoms and the fruit will grow at the base of the female blossoms. It is fun to watch the blossoms develop as well as the squash. They will begin to

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