After growing up with gardens, and now 5 years into my own, there are quite a few crops I've decided aren't worth growing. Specifically:

Things that will never enter my garden because they're gross:
-OKRA

Things that don't taste much better home grown than I can buy them from the store for less effort:
-Potatoes
-Onions (I grow them anyway if I have space)
-Slicing cucumbers (I do grow little ones for gherkins)
-green beans (except when there's space or I feel like experimenting)
-cilantro
-all of the squashes

Things that I can't seem to grow well where I am (some overlap with the above, as well):
-All of the brassicas
-lettuce and spinach (but arugula and swiss chard are champs!)
-blueberries (I haven't given up yet though)
-peas

Things that I can grow and like but don't need much of:
-tomatillos (I still have them left over from last year)
-all the squash again (takes up too much space in the garden also)
-carrots, beets, radishes, etc.
-corn

However, it's important also to clarify with this category--Things I would grow if I had more space:
-everything above except the can't grow stuff!
-OKRA

So, I focus on tomatoes (27 this year) and peppers (10-12 plants, lost count) and herbs and tiny cucumbers and non-lettuce leafy greens. I'm killing it with blackberries also. Is there anything y'all would add? Am I really missing out on something I'm not growing for the wrong reasons?

Herbs are a big one for me. Too easy to grow and very expensive at the store. And fresh is always better.

I'll have to disagree, partially, with your assessment on beans however. Beans are a great way to fix nitrogen in your garden naturally, while also having fun and growing produce

I LOVE beans too, but I think that onions are a waste of time because they are so cheap in the stores late in the season. I like to have my own spuds, but they take up a lot of room so I prefer to skip them.

Linda

Rockoe10 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 4:26 pm I'll have to disagree, partially, with your assessment on beans however. Beans are a great way to fix nitrogen in your garden naturally, while also having fun and growing produce

I actually planted beans this year for this purpose. I interplanted peppers later when some beans didn't germinate and there was space. I don't really lack nitrogen, but that's what I was thinking of when I planted them.

None of this is a waste of time if you ou were raised like me and if you didn't grow it you couldn't afford to buy it.
The whole concept is relative.
This of course if you have the space and time to do it of which my family did.
We raised all of our garden produce for the year and raised all of our meat.
Including beef pork chicken and rabbit.
Fish we caught.
Other meat we hunted.

Yes Worth, but what do you do NOW? Do you grow everything possible or do you find that you can now afford to buy more at the store, have less space than when you grew up, and less time to devote to it with your current job? Everything was different 30, 40, 50 years ago. Most people have totally different lifestyles than people did then, even if they still don't have a lot of money.

Potatoes are something that I only grew once, because they attracted certain bugs that wiped out my eggplants, and some other vegetables (even though the potatoes looked unscathed!), plus potatoes are so cheap, and I really don't eat them often. Spinach and cilantro are two things that no matter what I used, they bolted before I got much from them. Onions are one that I would need much more room for, and are very cheap. Summer squash I can't grow, due to SVBs. Dried beans I would need a lot more room for, but I do grow green and purple/red beans.

With all of the brassicas I grow, napa is one that just doesn't grow well for me in the spring - it tends to either bolt early, or is a flea beetle magnet. Does ok in the fall, however.

Yea, I wish I could nail zucchini, but it’s been little payoff for a big chunk of real estate. Same for yellow squash. What else has been disappointing? Broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Dinky production for me, eats up too much space. I crush kale and spinach, home run vegetables. Cabbage is good, worthwhile. Not Cauliflower, broccoli or Brussels sprouts. One more, beets, don’t get that one at all. Like the taste, beets hate my garden.

I like your worth-growing picks, Travis. Lots of delicious there.
Beans have not been worth growing here because they fail more often than not. Peas are a better bet.
Zucchini is iffy depending on the year, but the other squashes are absolutely no, too late, and I don't eat em.
Broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, not worth the space and the wait, for me, for one and done crop. Kailan and yu choy sum are great, worth the space and easier to grow. Yu choy is fast (40 days) and done after a couple of cuts. Kailan is slower to mature but has a long harvest period. We love arugula and lettuce too, and herbs including cilantro because what is sold in stores here is not worth buying.
Potatoes are worth it for the taste but you have to have lots of space and deep good dirt or it's too complicated.
Onions would be great, but I love growing garlic so I'm looking for rotations for those beds.. can't be onions.

Gardening for me is about enjoyment, so grow whatever you like. But when it come to limited space, I rather grow things that cost more in the store or cannot be purchased, over things you can buy cheaply.

For me personally, this is controversial but because of my concern with the herbicides used in crop desiccation, if I have the space and means I would try grow as many as I can, so I don't have to spend more to buy the organic version.

For lettuce, I haven't grown in Texas, but in term of heat and humidity, there are some heat tolerant lettuce that I grow with success up till April in South Florida, particularly Red Sails and Grand Rapids.

I don't have to grow cilantro because they self seed like weed. I'm allowing my lettuce and parsley to do this too. Chives is another good one.

Ever considered something like Garden Sorrell [mention]TXTravis[/mention] . If you like the taste of lemon, you may well enjoy it. Perennial leafy green that once established just keeps on producing all year

Nice lists, agree with your reasons. For me,
Not worth it - Malabar spinach. Blecht!
Struggle with carrots, but can’t give up.
I could never, ever go thru Summer without okra. Must have.

Carrots. I just don't understand how they can sell them that cheap. Also I never had much success growing them.
Eggplant is technically also insanely cheap, less than 2 euro per kilo now (so they were grown during winter), how can they afford all that heating an eggplant needs, and sell at that price. But I have a slight obsession growing eggplant, so that one stays.

I think there’s no comparison between store-bought and home-grown for:
Tomatoes
Green beans
Peppers
Potatoes
Lettuce, greens in general
Eggplant
Cukes
Cauliflower
Peas
Radishes
Leeks
Most fruit

Can’t say for things I haven’t grown much of, like onions, corn.

Sue_CT wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 5:10 pm Yes Worth, but what do you do NOW? Do you grow everything possible or do you find that you can now afford to buy more at the store, have less space than when you grew up, and less time to devote to it with your current job? Everything was different 30, 40, 50 years ago. Most people have totally different lifestyles than people did then, even if they still don't have a lot of money.

That's why I said it's all relative.
Without going into great personal detail my parents had to do this.
Many of the people in the area did the same thing.
None of us were hobby farmers.

cabbage and head type lettuce bolt before they have a chance to form heads.
bugs get to the cabbage and it ends up looking like swiss cheese.
I don't have the real estate for corn or melons.

When the Alium Leaf Miner arrived in my area a few years ago I quit growing onions. They have to be covered to keep the flies from laying their eggs on them and I don't want to go to the trouble. Onions never stored all that well for me anyway so it's just not worth it anymore.

I do like growing potatoes even though they are cheap in the store. Commercial potato growers spray their soil with fungicides, grow the potatoes and then kill the vines with chemicals so that they can harvest. They probably also spray for Colorado Potato beetles during growth. I hand pick mine or spray with an organic spray if they get bad. Then the harvested potatoes are sprayed with anti sprouting chemicals.

I like to grow my own potatoes because it is fun to see them develop and I like to have organic potatoes. We don't eat a lot of potatoes so I only grow 2 rows but I really like seeing what develops below ground. It's a fun veggie for me.

Things from my garden I don't see mention of:
eggplant
basil
sweet potatoes
asparagus
parsnips
garlic
rhubarb
Texas is not PA, I don't know what would grow there, not the last four I suppose.

pepperhead212 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 5:24 pm Potatoes are something that I only grew once, because they attracted certain bugs that wiped out my eggplants, and some other vegetables (even though the potatoes looked unscathed!), plus potatoes are so cheap, and I really don't eat them often. Spinach and cilantro are two things that no matter what I used, they bolted before I got much from them. Onions are one that I would need much more room for, and are very cheap. Summer squash I can't grow, due to SVBs. Dried beans I would need a lot more room for, but I do grow green and purple/red beans.

With all of the brassicas I grow, napa is one that just doesn't grow well for me in the spring - it tends to either bolt early, or is a flea beetle magnet. Does ok in the fall, however.

I was the same way with summer squash pests.
Get some agribon and steel hoops and do a little tunnel over the squash. Don't uncover until they are flowering well. I did this last year and had more summer squash that we could handle. Gray, green and yellow. I shredded and canned a bunch for sour dough zuchini bread. And put them in early. By the time the SVB are heavy you'll be squashed out. Only problem with covering is that it makes it hard to spot water. So I used drip tape fed from a 4ft high 5 gal bucket. But a hose could force water through.

JRinPA wrote: ↑Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:36 am Things from my garden I don't see mention of:
eggplant
basil
sweet potatoes
asparagus
parsnips
garlic
rhubarb
Texas is not PA, I don't know what would grow there, not the last four I suppose.

Rhubarb can be grown in the far north of Texas i suppose but it hates the heat.
My mom loved the stuff and she had plants growing in southeast Oklahoma.
I don't miss Rhubarb at all.
The other three can be grown in Texas with ease.
The hard neck garlic is a bit of a challenge.
But Texas is a huge state.