6 easy-to-grow vegetables to sow directly

Sowing the seeds directly in the field or in a pallet collar is suitable for those who do not want to or do not have the space to sow indoors. Some seeds also grow best outdoors! Here we give you tips on easy-to-grow vegetables to sow directly.

Lettuce

Lettuce is easy to grow in the garden as well as in pots. You can harvest tasty and crunchy leaves to put on your plate right into autumn. Sow new lettuce directly on the planting site every two weeks and you are guaranteed a long harvest. Take the opportunity to sow different kinds, for variety in your summer salad.

Lettuce seeds have difficulty germinating if the soil temperature reaches above 20 degrees. Sow your lettuce in April or May when the soil is still quite cool. If the summer is cold and rainy, you can directly sow lettuce in batches throughout the summer. If it is instead a hot and dry summer, it can be difficult to get it to germinate. Sow it in small pots in a cooler place and make sure there is plenty of light. When you have new small lettuce plants, you can plant them in the ground or in the pallet collar. You also avoid standing with gaps in places where you have finished harvesting.

There are many varieties of lettuce to choose from, ranging from spear lettuce and head lettuce to romaine lettuce and escarole lettuce.

Here you can read more about growing lettuce.

Sugar pea

Sugar peas is easy to grow and can be sown outdoors when the nights are frost-free, approximately from May in southern Sweden. From sowing to harvest it takes about 2 months. Harvest often – freshly harvested pods taste the best! In addition, new pea pods grow as you harvest. Even children find it fun to grow peas. The large seeds are easy to sow and it's fun for the kids to be able to go outside and pick pods themselves straight from the pea plants.

One tip is to sow sugar peas in several batches throughout the summer in order to be able to harvest them over a longer period of time. Soak the seeds for a couple of hours before sowing. Harvest before the pods get too thick. Since legumes help to draw down and retain nitrogen (an important substance for plants) in the soil, you can also grow nutrient-demanding plants such as squash alongside your pea plants. It is also a good idea to grow your squash in the place of the sugar pea next year.

Swiss chard

Mangold is one of our most easily grown vegetables and can be sown in batches right into the autumn. It provides plenty of tasty leaves that are also packed with vitamins. Swiss chard thrives best if sown directly when the soil has warmed up. New leaves grow as you harvest. Chard thrives just as well in the garden as in a pallet collar or pot. It is especially good to fry or have in a salad or lasagna. Try replacing the spinach in your favorite recipe with Swiss chard. Want to know more about how to succeed with this super vegetable? 

Radish

Radishes are another favorite that are easy to grow, produce quickly and are great for growing between other vegetables such as squash and cabbage. A tip is to sow 5-10 seeds per decimeter in a zig-zag row, then no thinning is needed. If you sow them more closely, you need to thin, that is, remove some plants to make room for the rest. Then you can take the opportunity to add the thinned, edible radish leaves to your salad.

Water abundantly and feel free to cover the seed with fiber cloth to make it more difficult for insects to attack the seedlings. You can start directly sowing your radishes as soon as the soil can be dug into and a little into August. Radishes thrive best in cool, moist soil and therefore easily become small and bitter in taste during the height of summer. It is therefore best to sow them in the cooler spring or later in August-September when the night temperatures drop and start to cool the soil. So pause sowing radishes in mid-summer and sow new seeds in late summer to harvest in autumn.

Do you want to get perfectly straight rows of radishes and at the same time get plants that end up at the right distance from each other right from the start? Then you can try seed with radishes. 

Onion

A really fresh, newly harvested onion tastes wonderful. May is the perfect time to plant your own onions. Buy heat-treated onions - then the onions will not bloom as easily. Plant them in rows or groups with 10-15 centimeters between each bulb to give them room to grow. You can also plant them close together and thin out good bulbs as they grow during the summer. Yellow onions are many people's favourite, but you can also try red onions, silver onions or scarlet onions. If you want to try several, there are mix packs with several different kinds of onions.

Onion cultivation may not look so exciting on its own. A tip is therefore to also sow a little dill and marigolds among the onions. In this way, you get more out of the surface while you have something beautiful to look at. 

Beans

When the soil temperature reaches above 15 degrees in late May or early June, it is time to direct-sow beans. For beans to grow, it is important that the soil is warm. You can sow your beans in garden soil, pallet collar or even potted.

A safe tip is to place the bean seeds between two damp wet cloths. After a couple of days, the seeds will begin to germinate and you can put them directly into the soil. Beans love warm and loose soil. Let them grow in a sunny and warm place. 

There are many kinds of beans to choose from and most need a support to climb on. So look at how tall the plants get when you choose a variety and you will know how high support they will need.

Beans are both tasty and rich in protein. You are also doing our world a favour by choosing beans as a protein source for your meal. Beans are a climate-smart protein choice!

Which beans are you choosing this season? String beans, green beans or maybe broad beans?

Tips when sowing directly outside

Remember to mark where and what kind of seeds you have sown so that you don't mistake them for weeds when they start to sprout. Water in the morning rather than in the evening so that the wetness on the surface of your cultivation has time to dry up faster, then the snails do not thrive as well in your cultivation. It is in the evening that most killer snails are out. So feel free to take a round then and clean the ones you see from your vegetables.