Only one? A tomato plant. Hands down the most popular.

Dave

Climbing beans...emerite and purple pole. Lavender and purple flowers and green and purple beans (respectively). The purple beans turn dark green when you cook them. Pretty flowers, neat looking beans and they magically change color when you cook them...what more could you want, especially if you have kids helping in the garden :)

I second tomato.

Since tomato has already been said, I vote for cucumber. nothing quite tastes like a cucumber straight off the vine.

ONE? Well tomato, of course -- next to heaven to bite into a warm juicy 'mater.

Close second is cucumbers ... FLAVOR !! [roll my eyes up to heaven]

Well, I won't mention beets, green beans or home grown potatoes .... because you asked for only one.

Asparagus! If you buy it at the store it has been cut and shipped which is not fresh. Running out to the asparagus bed, cutting a few spears and steaming them lightly for dinner is garden heaven!

I second asparagus but make sure you plant way more than you need. (you will need it!!!!!)

Dale

I was going to say beets just for the sear cost. Take so little work to grow really nice ones. They're also easy to pickle and store great even in Z11.

...but tomatoes are King, any tomato you grow will be better than anything you get store bought.

Then of course a fig tree? Easy to grow, lots of fruit.

I've never known anyone to turn down a free bushel of figs, unlike free squash in season. >smile

All the tomato people might think I'm weird, but I would say lettuce! ;) I just love me a fresh salad. Which makes me a big fan of the tomato, too! Sadly a combination of local climate and tiny yard make it so I almost never get to put my lettuce and tomatoes together in the same salad...

Anyway, lettuce is easy(ish) to grow from seed, you can often find transplants as well (beyond easy then, if you don't buy ones that are already rootbound), and its pests are pretty easily managed.

You know, it's really hard to pick just one veggie to recommend- now I want to sing the praises of beans, onions, garlic, peas, broccoli, potatoes, squash, melons, tomatoes (of course), and so on... :)

thanks everyone!

glad to hear beans, tomatoes and lettuce because I do have seeds for those!

I tried beets before (golden) and did not like them. I just can't do them.

I think I have 2 different kinds of cucumber seeds I'm going to try also this year, that way i can find a variety i like and do a taste-test. Pickling will be in the future...

Asparagus! Is that a bi-annual, right? So if I grow this year, I have to wait til next year to eat?

these are great, feel free to add more!!! thanks :)

Only one? For me it would be artichokes, but then what do I plant in the summer?

Yes, artichokes are perennial and you get crops starting the second year. I just love them so much, I invest the time/space/effort. I believe the asparagus folks feel the same (about asparagus that is).

You need to ask for one summer crop and one winter crop. So artichoke as my sole winter crop........summer crop? just too hard to chose between nice tender green beans, juicy tomatoes, luscious peppers, creamy eggplants....I can't do it.

Strawberries! Just give them well composted, well fertilized soil. Wonderful payoff; fruit to eat and fruit for canning. Don't need to replant them the next year. Raspberries, especially the everbearing variety, are a close second. Potatoes, corn. I see you are in zone 8. I'd be planting melons like muskmelon.

If I could choose only based on great taste, I would go for tomatoes, snap beans, cucumber or some of the others mentioned. Tomatoes are usually considered the must have home grown vegetable.

But considering the criteria given (prolific, tasted great, easy to care for, etc) I have to go with okra. All the others are prone to pests and diseases, especially tomatoes. Okra is about as fool-proof as any crop you can grow, except for cowpeas. Cowpeas are good, and absolutely trouble free, but not so great tasting as okra. But then, there are people who don't care for okra. :-)

Asparagus is a perennial and requires several years to get well established. After that it is trouble free.

Jim

Asparagus is not a biennial, but rather a perennial. Meaning that it will survive for decades without replanting. You won't be able to harvest the first or second years as the plant establishes itself and maturees. But you never have to plant it again either.

I'd second lettuce, because I like a nice salad every day. It doesn't grow too well in summer here tho - so will opt for green beans in summer.

Cherry tomatoes grow fairly well, but regular tomatoes like more summer heat than I can give them.

We grow lots and lots of citrus - in our zone - easily.

Bejay

Peas are wonderful out of the garden. To be able to go out and pick a few, open the pods and eat those sweet early peas raw is one of my favorite things about the spring vegetable garden. Unfortuantely, I have shared this experience with all my nieces and nephews, which means no sweet pea flowers in the garden for a few years...they're pods are poisonous. There is a nice snow pea that climbs and has lavender and pink flowers that I use instead :)

We're really only allowed to name ONE??

In reality it would be tomatoes, but everyone's already extolled their benefits, so I'll throw out #2: swiss chard. Very easy to grow, long growing season (spring until hard freeze in fall), doesn't bolt in the heat, still tastes good if you forget to water, will grow in part shade, nutritious, very versatile... you can use it in pretty much any way you would use lettuce/spinach/collards--sandwiches, soups, pasta, tacos...

Now if you said top FIVE I would add peppers, strawberries, and peas as well =)

You make a very strong case for chard. I have to agree with all your reasons.

Jim

I'll add peas and chard to the list, thanks!!

I'm going to say Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole beans. You can eat them as a snap bean. You can let the seeds develop and use them as a dried bean too. They're prolific. You can also freeze them, pressure can them or pickle them!

I though about this awhile. It is a difficult choice.But if I had to do it, it would be BASILS. I can buy tomatoes, cucumbers, etc from supermakets at a reasonabe price. But basils are too expensive, not fresh,. I love basils with bar-b-q, hotdogs, on sandwhiches, in spagetti sauces, in salads. I would just pick, wash and eat them. I love its minty taste and aroma. How many veggies can come close ? I can think of cilantros.

Sorry if only 1, I am with the Tomato crowd, beauty is that there are paste, cherry, grape, on and on, so it could be a cheat choice!
second Runner Beans as they really taste lovely when fresh picked, but even a few hours say 12, on they can taste not great! so really can't be brought!

Wow, I think a bit of information is needed here.

If you plant asparagus, do it soon, and choose one that likes warmer weather. Artichoke can go in soon, too.

Lettuce and peas (and carrots and radishes), plant now or very soon. They like cool weather.

Tomatoes and cucumbers (and squash and corn and pumpkins), plant after your average last frost, if you have any. Even warm season plants stop growing/producing for a while in the hottest part of the summer.

Then, as fall progresses and the highs are no longer in the 80s and 90s, start your fall garden of lettuce, peas, carrots, and other salad crops again, and some short-season potatoes. In zone 8 the cool season plants will take you all the way through the winter with lovely salads and root crops.

Oh, and I vote for blackberries as a fruit to grow.

Catherine

All the votes in favor of tomato are understandable, at least so far as great taste and versatility are concerned. Home grown tomatoes are far better than store bought at $3.00 to $4.00 per pound. Definitely worth growing.

However, does anyone consider them easy to grow? In my experience tomatoes have more troublesome pests and diseases and require more attention than any other veggie in my garden. If I were asked to recommend one difficult veggie to grow, tomato would be the main contender.

Jim

Aside from late blight during last year's very wet summer, I have found tomatoes to be very easy to grow... no problems at all, and not fussy like some other crops. They aren't bothered by pests in my garden at all, although that could be due to both companion gardening and the previous owner of this house, who I think may have shot most of the squirrels and rabbits in the neighborhood... =)

impossible to choose just one thing to grow.
kale would be on the short list. one of the most nutritious leafy greens there is.

keith

For me, it would be peppers. They may not be THE easiest to grow, but for us it is the best value for the effort. Peppers are very nutritious, and are so expensive in the stores here. Growing them ourselves has allowed us to eat them whenever we please all year long, because of the many packages in the freezer. On good years, we mostly have reds of both sweets and hots. In short-season years we have more green ones, but even then, we've found that green peppers seem to be less bitter when home grown when compared to store bought. Another bonus is how easy peppers are to prepare and package for the freezer.

If I could only grow one thing, it would be a cherry tomato plant. They are prolific, and give you delicious tomatoes way better than you can buy, and will bear from July well into October in my area.

Baby lettuces are also towards the top of the list, as are pole beans and peas. Sugar snaps are expensive in the store, but easy to grow, and can also be used as snow peas. Fresh shelled peas are impossible to buy at the store, and are such a wonderful delicacy in spring. Pole beans are prolific, and very versatile in the kitchen. They can be grown on an attractive trellis, and take up very little square footage that way.

Ditto on the chard. In terms of yield per square foot, it is one of the most prolific of vegetables... and greens really benefit from going straight from garden to table. Can be planted early or late, cool weather or hot, and still do well (provided it is kept watered). Since it is cut-and-come-again, you can get almost continuous harvest.

For fruit in warm climates, I'd have to agree with figs. When I lived in San Diego, they bore twice a year. Fresh figs are delicious, but too perishable for them to be carried in stores except during peak season. Beautiful trees, too. But then, if space is not an issue, there's always kiwi. Beautiful vines with few pests. OK, I know that's two... you choose. ;-)

I agree with many of the other posters on this thread. Chard and Kale. Both grow well for me in my winter greenhouse. I've been praising both on my blog. I did a "Kale vs Chard Challenge" a few days ago and compared the nutritional value of each. Kale wins hands down. If you want to see it, you would need to scroll down the page a bit.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chard vs. Kale

Tomato in number one vegetable grown and used in America. So it is no wonder to be number one choice here. But as I said, if I had very limited land resource, my number one choice or priority would be to grow culinary herbs.

Very nice blog, Mark! It has lots of interesting content, all well presented.

In the Kale vs. Chard contest you compare one cup of kale with one cup of chard, equal volumes in other words. Do you know if the weights were equal also?

Jim

Only one?

Kale, plain and simple, its super hardy, tasty in salads, on a sandwich or what I call veggie stew, most importantly its a powerhouse of vitamans and minerals!