What Vegetables Take the Shortest Time to Grow

Do you ever feel like gardening takes forever? You plant seeds and then you wait and you wait and you wait some more, and then three, four months pass and you barely got a harvest to show for all your hard work and all that waiting. Well, what if I told you there were vegetables that you could plant by seed today and harvest from in the next three to four weeks? In this video, I'm going to teach you my four favorite super fast growing vegetables so you can start with seed and get a harvest and asap. So a few years ago, I wrote this book called Leaves, Roots and Fruit that covers this exact idea of how much time, space, and care each of the plants in the vegetable garden take. When I did this deep dive study, I figured out something very important. There are some plants that just grow fast. There are some plants that are just easy to take care of. There are some plants that are made for impatient people like me and you. What I learned in researching, writing this book is there is essentially a stair step that plants gradually get harder to care for. Plants. Plants gradually have bigger needs when it comes to sunlight and space, and that plants gradually take longer to produce the thing that we want to harvest. And that's where I came up with the concept of leaves, roots, and fruit. Because here at the bottom, these plants have the least amount of needs when it comes to space, time, and sun. They're leaves, they're plants that we grow for the leafy harvest. Then plants right here in the middle, they need a little bit more space, a little bit more sun, a little bit more care and a little bit more time. And they're produce roots for us. And then finally here at the top, the plants that produce flowers, fruit and seeds, they need the most sun, the most space, and the most time. So if you're looking for plants that are going to give you a very quick harvest in as little time as possible, you want to focus on the plants that are down here at the bottom of the stairs, and those are going to be leaves and roots. So considering the leaves, roots and fruit model, it only makes sense that the fastest growing vegetables are going to be leafy greens. And these are two of the absolute fastest. The first is a ro. Arugula. So arugula is a leafy green. It's in the brassica plant family. Most of the other brassicas are very different. You've got things like kale and broccoli and cauliflower and cabbages, and then you have little old arugula. It's this tiny little green that pops up from Seed in literally like two or three days, and you can get your first harvest within 18, 19, 20, 21 days from planting. And the harvests don't stop. These are cut and come again varieties. So you cut from the plant and it grows back. Cut from it and it grows again. Arugula is a magic plant. I literally don't understand why we sell this at the grocery store. Because all of us could grow this in a little bucket, a little pot. The smallest container can grow arugula. The roots on these things are like this big. All they need to be done is watered and cut, and you can get tons of harvest in literally less than three weeks. The next leafy green that is super fast growing is this spring mix. This was the plant that turned me into a successful gardener. So, so, same thing, you plant the seeds directly in the soil, and then you're going to get all these leafy green lettuces growing within five, six days. These are a little bit slower than the arugula, but they're literally only four or five days behind in terms of growing time. So this spring mix is a wide variety. You've got little oak leaf lettuces and red leaf lettuces and little frilly lettuces. They're all going to grow together. They're all in the same plant family. And you have this nice, beautiful variety of reds and greens and different textures. And then you can just cut from them and they'll do the same thing as the arugula, where they grow back and give you two to three harvests from every single plant. Again, tiny, tiny root, hardly any needs. All you got to do is water them and harvest from them. You can get harvest as soon as 21 to 27 days from planting. So these two, if you're looking for major ROI on your work in the garden and you want to get a harvest as fast as possible, you've got to plant arugula and spring mix lettuce. So that covers the leafy greens. And now there are two of my fastest growing plants that are in the root groups. Now, these root groups also are going to be planted by seed directly in the soil. And they're also going to give you super quick harvest. The first and the fastest root is radishes. So these are in the same plant family as arugula. And when the first little leaves pop up, you're going to see the similarity. You'll be able to tell, oh, this is the same plant family. But the difference is these radishes, they're not just going to Give you greens that, by the way, you can cut and enjoy in a salad or a saute, but also roots. And you'll be able to harvest these roots within 25 to 30 days of planting the seed. 25 to 30 days. We're talking before next month. You're going to have these cutie little radishes that you can be pulling out from the soil. All you got to do is space these correctly and keep them watered, and you'll have harvest in less than a month. Now, the next root doesn't grow quite as fast as those leafy greens or the radish, but you can still get a harvest in about two months. So carrots need a little bit more space in the garden. They're a different kind of plant. They're in the apaci plant family, same as parsley, cilantro, and dill. And these are going to need about three fingers wide when you plant your seeds, same thing as the radishes. Space them right, keep them watered, and you'll get a harvest in 60 days. The roots are going to take a little bit longer than your leafy greens, but when you grow them yourself, you can actually harvest the greens, too. So those radish greens and the carrot greens, they're going to come up while those roots are developing under the ground. You can make pesto sauces, sautes. You can do all kinds of things with the greens. Then you also get the root harvest at the end of the plant's growth cycle. So from 18 days to 60 days, and you've suddenly got a garden that is absolutely packed with nutrition, with variety, and so many meals that you can make directly from your garden, and you hardly have to wait any time at all. So many people, when they start a garden, they start with the hardest things to grow. They start with the fruit things like tomatoes, zucchini, and peas and peppers. And while I know those things are super exciting and very rewarding, they also take a ton of time. So my preference when I'm starting in the garden or when I'm having a busy season in life, or I just want to have a ton of production, I focus on the leaves and roots instead. I'll get tons of harvest really quickly, which completes that reward loop in my brain and keeps me gardening. If you haven't grabbed my book Leaves, Roots and Fruit just yet, I'll put a link to it right below this video. If you like this idea of understanding what plants are easy and how things get harder as plants progress, you're going to love this book. It's also a great thing to give to someone who's trying to figure out gardening. Also, all these seeds are inside of our Easy Gardening Kit. I put together 10 seeds, along with tutorials, a video, school, planting plans and recipes so that you can learn to grow at least 10 things in the garden in a super easy way. And almost all of them, they grow really fast too. So I'll link that right below this video. And speaking of harvest, there's actually a way that you can grow more food in less space next year so that you can replace the produce that you're buying from the grocery store and save major money next year. I made a video all about it. You can watch it right here.