Bitter Mlon, Tindora and Shelly beans.

Purple beans and yellow squash are as fail safe as I've ever know.

BUT my beans fell victim to this bad soil and I've continually had to fight the squash vine borers so even those aren't totally foolproof.

I suppose it all depends on your soil and climate.

After a whole lot of years of gardening, I honestly can't point to ONE thing that has NEVER failed. OK, probably Jerusalem Artichokes, but honestly, even though I am growing them, I hardly ever use any of them, so I'm not really going to count those. Of the things I really need, want, and use, SOMETHING does well every season, others fail, and it changes year to year based upon weather, critters/insects/diseases, etc.

Radicchio never fails in Zone 6 except for deer, rabbit and groundhogs. I have two full beds, very large plants, great year for it despite being the coldest on record, the "thinnings" of one clump make a large salad. We are cooking and freezing loads of it as a potherb.

Lettuce never fails either but its season may be shortened in a warm year. Corn salad, miner lettuce, arugula, same as lettuce. Chard never fails either, even this year, nice plants, though mine has just been razed by a deer (I should not have planted it in the flowerbed). Potatoes have never failed but they will catch blight and reduce yields. Beans, zucchini and cukes have produced poorly this year. Herbs are great, even basil and sage are producing well in a cold year on three hours of sunlight.

So, considering exceptionally cold and warm years, chard, herbs and radicchio are my winners.

Oh, lord, okra! Here in Texas you can't kill it (and I've tried). I put in one row, a short one at that, and have okra coming out my ears. Everyone plants it, so it is practically impossible to give away. You think zucchini is hard to foist off on someone? Just try getting rid of a big bag of okra!

Pole beans, var. Helda.
Peas.
Zucchinis.
Do Blackberries count?

The last time I responded to a thread like this one was a few/several years ago when I responded that tomatos were my never fail crop. And they were. Note the paste tense of the last sentence ;)

I no longer comment on such threads because I have learned that Murphy stalks me.

I have killed just about anything one might want to grow, but for at least one of my two beds I'd say asparagus. My original seven year old bed keeps pumping out more asparagus each spring than we want. It grows through turf. It grows through weeds. The deer eat some of it, but I guess they don't like the smell it gives their urine.

Chuck

My no-fail crop has always been tomatoes. I could grow giant ones, juicy and sweet. Just plant and water and start eating em.

I dont have a no-fail tomato crop anymore. I started planting more toms than just 4 per year. Did 8. Then 12. This year 18. Got greedy with wanting more and more but what I was actually harvesting during the past 2 yrs was less and less. Last year late crop & poor production, this year blight.

What about a radish? LOL.

Posted by justaguy2 5 (My Page) on Mon, Aug 10, 09 at 12:50

The last time I responded to a thread like this one was a few/several years ago when I responded that tomatos were my never fail crop. And they were. Note the paste tense of the last sentence ;)
I no longer comment on such threads because I have learned that Murphy stalks me............Then I will say purslane and lambs quarters. LOL. Though I dont plant them they just come to make life miserable.

I'll tempt fate and say zucchini and mint. I could live with a little less of each these. lol

Chard, string beans, and beets.

It used to be beans and zucchini, but not this year. I have more cucumber and tomato than beans and zucchini.

Cherry tomatoes.

For me it's always been eggplant.

Lettuce grown in planter started inside very early spring. Planter can be moved in and out, into shade or onto porch out of rain. Swiss chard started inside and then transplanted to garden does well, but the slugs are enjoying it almost as much as I am this season. The slugs are the worst that I have seen them in the 13 yrs that we have been here.

Good gardening, Mary

Okra and cherry tomatoes for me here in AZ. Wish I could say the same for cucumbers, which fall into the "Always Fail" camp for me. I keep trying to grow them though. Have to get it right eventually.

Wade

@Mister Gin,

Have you tried Armenian cucumbers? Technically they're a melon and they LOVE heat. At about the time my first planting of cukes gave up the Armenians began plotting world domination.

They choked the pole beans off their shared trellis, sent a lot of vines out across some grass I was solarizing, and are sending some new vines around the shed to ambush my DH. ;-) LOL

Okra -- even when the plants are over run with ants and aphids they produce.

DL

My "Never Fail" crop is pigweed, ragweed, bindweed, crabgrass and grasshoppers. I plant my crops, then this "Weed" crop comes up. It is a race to see who's "Crop"will win.

I agree though that Cherry Tomatoes are a pretty fail safe.

Swiss chard. It grows all summer with zero effort.

I am even willing to jinx myself, because jinx can't touch swiss chard.

iam3killerbs,

I may give the Armenian cucumbers a try next year. I almost bought a pack from Lowe's the other day.

I'm still going to be planting regular cukes though. I've already started some seeds for fall planting. Hopefully I'll have better luck during this time of the year.

Loose leaf lettuces, mesclun, romaine lettuces, etc. Of course here we have to grow them as fall through spring crops. I've had lettuces go all winter long, with a sheet tossed over them when frost threatened. My lettuce bolted in the first week of May this year! Oregano. Sage. I've got rosemary that's 4 feet high and can't be discouraged. Two years ago I would have said parsley and dill, but this year they died like dogs in the weird weather we had. I'm counting the days until I can put in more salad greens...

Red beets, now if I could just figure out how to get those darned tater tot seeds to sprout!

Michael

I'm surprised at the diverse answers everyone is giving. I guess there's something for everyone but not one thing for everyone!

I'm going to jinx myself but I'll say onions, Nothing bothers them...

Sweetpotatoes and okra. These grow and produce well with almost no work. Okra seems to enjoy triple digit temps and I've seen sweetpotatoes produce well even after being completely defoliated by bunnies mid-season. Dave

Garlic. Put a clove in the ground in October, cut the scape (yum!) in May, pull out a bulb in July. Keeps pests away from other plants, too. Leave it in the ground for perpetual greens.

I only grow hardneck, so can't say how foolproof softneck garlic would be.

New to this forum but been a member for a few years. Like someone else said, Okra! I grow in containers and will get 9 months of production before it dwindles.

Until this year I would have said squash, expecially zuchinni. This has been a weird year. Warmed up a month too early then stayed wet and cool too long. The yellow crooknecks I planted produced blossoms galore, then finally a very few large zuchinni.(Seeds came from Shumway) The zuchinni and scallop squash I planted did not produce very many more than the crooknecks.

I'm surprised that so many peops said okra. It is the hardest vegie I plant to get a good stand. It's very temperature sensitive during the germination period. I usually get long skips and then long strips too thick, and end up transplanting to fill the gaps. Once it starts producing though it's gangbusters if you keep it picked. This spring I got a good stand, had to thin all of it. but it's been very slow to begin producing.

Winter squash like spaghetti squash. It's been so hot and dry down here in Central Texas that nothing much has produced well, but my spaghetti squash and early butternuts have done pretty good. Everything else ~ not so much. For instance, out of 73 tomato plants I might have harvested a five gallon bucketful of tomatoes.

It's funny that two crops I've never had much luck with, onions and peppers, did very well this year, atleast relatively for me. I'd never had much or any luck with them, but learned more about them last year so knew to put extra nitrogen on them this year. Bingo! Decent sized onions and pepper plants loaded with fruit.

BTW, Iam3killerbs, I laughed out loud reading your description of your Armenian cukes. *Giggle ~ snort!* Seriously ~ I scared the dog.

Wild raspberries. They grow whether I want them to or not.

--Jonathan