The Most Underrated Plant in the Garden!

If you don't grow anything else for yourself this year, you've got to grow this one plant. I call this the most underrated plant in the garden. Are you. Are you tempted? Are you ready? Listen, let me tell you about this plant and see if I can convince you to try it out. So I'm Nicole. John Seabrook, if we haven't met yet, I am the author of Kitchen Garden Revival and Leaves, Roots and Fruit and. And I'm the founder of Gardenary Incorporated, where we are on a mission to get everybody to start a garden, to improve their garden, or to start a garden business. So today we're going to talk about a plant you got to put in your garden, even if you've never gardened before. So first up, this plant starts with seed. And let me tell you about seed, okay? Seed is inexpensive. It doesn't cost a lot of money to grow a plant from seed. You can get a little packet of seed. If you got a gardenary seed packet, it's like less than $2, maybe 3, $4 at most. And in this packet of seed, you're going to get 20, 30 seeds. All right? So we're talking 20 to 30 plants from this one packet of seeds. You can start this plant from seed directly, put it right in the soil. You don't have to grow it indoors. You don't need lights, you don't need fans, you don't need heat mats. You can take this seed, stick it right in the soil, and boom, you're ready to grow this plant. All right? So that's number one, starts with seed. Number two, this plant will grow in any space, any space you can think of. I mean, if you've got a little pot, it'll grow in that. If you've got this little bitty space along your raised bed border, it will grow in that. If you've got a row in your raised bed, it'll grow in that. If you've got, like, a container that's already packed with all these other big plants, you can still plant this one thing from seed, and it'll grow right there. Super, super flexible. When it comes to space, it's not like my teenage daughters, okay, where they want their room just so this size needs a bathroom. Nope, this plant is not like that. It'll take any space that you will give it. Seriously, once you plant this seed, this is all you gotta do. Water it. All you have to do is water it. It doesn't need trellising. You don't have to tie it up on a trellis it doesn't need pruning. You just have to water it, especially for the first two weeks until it germinates, until it starts to grow from the seed. Then it's pretty much going to be self sufficient. It's going to take care of itself. Like it is a low, it's the lowest of low maintenance plants. I mean, I can think of one plant that's lower maintenance. That's about it. So you water it, you have it come up from seed, and then you're ready to watch it grow and do its magical thing. All right, so grows in any space, you can start it from seed. And super low maintenance. You're going to water it for two weeks, let it come up and germinate, and then mostly you're just going to wait for harvest. That's it. If that weren't enough, this plant also benefits nearby plants. So when it comes to nutrients, a lot of plants need nitrogen. Nitrogen is the nutrient that plants need to get going to start growing. Nitrogen is the thing that makes plants produce leaves, more leaves, and helps them photosynthesize. And so pretty much all the plants that you're going to grow in your kitchen garden need nitrogen. And this particular plant that you grow from seed, that grows anywhere, it makes nitrogen, it fixes nitrogen in the soil for your other plants. So it's not just doing its own thing. It's not just going to produce food for you itself. It's going to benefit the plants next to it, what plays well with others. Yes, that's what I said. Next up, this plant is going to produce a lot of food for you. Just this one seed is going to produce dozens more of itself in this one little plant. And the cool thing is it's got a very short growing time. So it's going to go from seed to harvest in about 60 days. So we're talking two months from the moment you just plop this thing in the dirt, did a little bit of watering. Two months later, you're harvesting. All you had to do was water a little bit and then you're harvesting in 60 days. All right. The neat thing is after you harvest, you can pull up the plant and start over. In fact, you could probably do this two to three times per season, this one plant. So seed, wait for the harvest, 60 days, do it again. Wait for the harvest, 60 days, do it again. I know. That gets you to what, 180 days. Most of us have somewhere between 120, 180 days of this kind of weather, this warm weather, when this plant loves to grow. All right, so literally plant it two to three times and you're going to get huge harvest from this plant every 60 days. Are you intrigued? Are you with me? Are you? Are you going to grow this underrated plant yet or. I need to keep going. I need to keep going. Okay, great. All right. So when you harvest this plant, it tastes so good. It tastes so much better than the ones you get from the grocery. In fact, I am sad to say I have thrown out so many of this plant from grocery store purchases because they go bad so quickly. It's like something about the shipping, they just don't store that well. This particular plant, it doesn't store well. And I toss a bunch, they get slimy and they get little white fuzzy things growing on them. Have you seen. I don't know if it's just me. I'm very ashamed. Literally have thrown out probably hundreds of dollars worth of this plant because I really want to cook it. And they just go bad too quickly. But fresh from the garden, oh, my goodness. So delicious, so good, so crunchy. You can eat them raw, you can cook them, and they're so good. Not only do they taste good, they're good for you. So this particular plant, packed with protein, packed with fiber. All right, so if you're looking for more protein in your diet, kind of tired of the steak and chicken, or if you're wanting to have a plant based protein meal, this plant is packed with protein, loads and loads of protein that you can give your body each and every day from this plant that you grew yourself. I don't know about you, but I don't have room for cows. I don't have room to be raising. Actually, I could raise chickens, but my neighborhood won't let me, which is so sad. But I can grow my own protein with this plant. I can increase the protein I know I need for my body by growing more and more of this plant. So this plant tastes good. And it is packed with protein and with fiber. And if you've done any of the math, if you've been in the nutrition space at all, you know that all of us need way more fiber in our diets. Fiber is the key to slowing down and aiding digestion. It's the key to healing diabetes or preventing diabetes. Fiber is the thing so many of us are missing, and this plant is packed with fiber. All right, are you in? Are you intrigued? What is the most underrated plant in the garden? Maybe you've already guessed it. You can put it in the comments before you hear me. Give it away. It is beans. Bush beans. In fact, bush green beans is what I'm referring to. Just that typical green bean that your mom made you eat when you were growing up, but you hated because it came from a can. These are green beans you're actually going to want to eat. And they really are, I think, the most underrated plant. I was actually just interviewing Leslie Bennett. She's the owner of Pine House Edible Gardens. She creates gorgeous gardens in some of the most beautiful yards in California. And I asked her, what's your favorite thing to grow? And you know what she said? She said beans. She likes growing beans. She said all the things I just said to you, but in her own more graceful words. But I couldn't agree more. Beans are just worth it. I mean, there's a reason why they use beans for like, preschool experiments, you know what I mean? Because they're one of those sure things that's actually going to sprout, turn into a root and a shoot, and grow into a full grown plant. If you are new to gardening, tired of gardening, too busy to garden, not enough space to garden, not sure gardening's worth it. You gotta try out beans. I'm not kidding. I know it sounds stupid, but literally, it's just like a super easy thing. All of us can grow from seed in any space with minimal care. You'll get a harvest in less than three months. You can plant it again and again. It benefits your nearby garden and it is so good it and so good for you beans. You got to try it. If you want to learn how to set up your garden so you can plant more beans. Got to get this book, Kitchen Garden Revival. And if you want to know the step by step to grow beans and all the other plants that's in this book, leaves, roots and fruit. And if you want to know when to plant your beans, you got to check out the Gardenary calendar. That's@gardenary.com calendar in that resource, you're going to give me two dates and then I give you all the rest. All right? So you give me the two dates. I tell you all the dates you need to grow all the things in your garden, including the most underrated plant in the garden, which is beans. Did you guess it? Did you figure it out? At what point did you know I was going to talk about beans? I would love to know the answer. Want me to talk about more underrated plants? Tell me in the comments below what kind of plants you want me to teach you how to grow next? I love growing green beans right along the side of my raised beds. You want to grow the bush variety? Grow them right over the edge of your bed and man they'll produce again and again and again. Such an easy thing to do. All of us can be doing it and you will be doing it because you watch this episode. Thanks for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. Please pretty please subscribe and check out this video all about some of my other easy to grow plants. Hint they are lettuces. All right, so you can check out this video here and I will see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. You can keep listening anywhere. You love getting your podcast delivered on Apple podcasts on Spotify, iHeartRadio, you name it, we are there for you. And if you want to read the notes and get our free resources to help you grow more, you can go to gardenary.com podcast.