Fast-growing vegetables are perfect for succession planting in a vegetable garden in the spring, summer, and fall. Following one vegetable with another to grow as much food as workable is what succession planting entails. Weeds can be avoided by using fast-growing garden plants. After early crops like peas and spinach have been harvested, you can plant other fast-maturing vegetables like bush beans, baby beets, and summer lettuce.
You’ll need to determine if you have adequate time to grow and mature a crop for harvest based on the planting time. You’ll need the number of days or how fast vegetables grow in your area, as well as the number of days until your first expected frost.
Plant descriptions on seed packets can be used to determine the days to maturity. Leaf lettuce, for example, takes 27 days to grow from seed to harvest for a baby crop and 55 days for full-sized heads. (Read 5 Easiest Vegetables To Grow)
Aside from that, with fast-growing vegetables in summer, you don’t need a long season to grow a rich harvest. You can learn more about fast-growing plants in our guide, and by the end, you’ll be able to distinguish between fast-growing veg seeds and slow-growing vegetable seeds. From then, you can grow the fastest-growing vegetables from seed in your garden in no time.
Which Vegetables Grow the Quickest?
Here are some quick-growing garden plants you can grow in your garden:
1. Arugula
Arugula is a wonderful tiny green with a peppery flavor that makes a nice perennial garden accent. Arugula is a fast-growing green perfect for spring and early fall colder temperatures rather than the hot weather of the summer months. All you have to do is plant it, wait a month for healthy growth of mature leaves to produce, and then cut them when you’re ready to eat.
Arugula may be grown year-round in almost all climate zones and is one of the best edible plants that grow fast and is harvested after 30 days.
2. Spinach
To grow Spinach, you directly sow the seeds into good-quality soil. Water the seeds and wait. Before long, in 4 to 6 weeks, you have fresh spinach. You’ll welcome spinach to any salad or add it to other recipes. Spinach grows in Zones 3-9, and the leaves are ready for harvest six weeks after planting.
3. Baby Carrots
Baby carrots taste delicious whatever way you have them. You can enjoy carrots in no time and can plant them in the ground or garden-raised beds. Sow the seeds directly in quality soil, and then around 30 days later, you’ll have your first harvest. Baby carrots grow in zones 4-10 and are picked early by an impatient gardener within a month of sowing.
4. Radishes
Radishes are one of the top plants that grow fast and are very easily. Radishes are excellent fast-growing vegetables to learn how to get to grips with gardening. Directly sow seeds in quality soil and zones 2-10. You can harvest in about 22-50 days from sowing these quick-grow vegetables.
5. Cucumbers
Cucumbers are a plant that can be grown in various ways and are a great crop not to buy from the grocery store to save money. You can eat them fresh as they are a staple salad addition. You can start preparing pickles with the fresh cucumbers once you’ve filled them.
Cucumbers like to run, so you’ll need to use a trellis or give them lots of room to grow. Cucumbers may be cultivated in zones 4-11, and baby cucumbers can be harvested as early as 50 days after planting if you want to make pickles. (Read How Long Do Cucumbers Last)
6. Beets
Beets are one of those vegetables that either appeal to you or do not. Even if you don’t like beets, you could prefer the greens originating from the plant.
It’s an excellent vegetable to grow in zones 2 through 10. If you need a quick harvest, plant in the spring or close to fall before the first expected frost, as they can handle a little heat but don’t appreciate the scorching temperatures we have in the late summer full sun. Beets can be harvested in around 50 days, although greens can be harvested in as little as 30 days.
7. Bush Beans
Bush beans grow beautifully in the garden and deliver a quick harvest. Sow the seeds into quality dirt and water and ensure they have plenty of sunlight. Bush beans will be ready in around 40-65 days and grown in zones 3-10.
8. Bok Choy
Bok Choy can produce a mature harvest in 30 days. Bok Choy grows in zones 4-7, and you can harvest individual leaves after 21 days like other greens, or the entire head harvest time is 45-60 days after planting.
9. Lettuce
Lettuce is a plant that anyone can enjoy. It offers a distinct flavor and crunch that varies with each variety. Lettuce is hardy and can grow in cooler weather and climates to produce a ripe harvest in a short amount of time.
Harvests can take 30 to 60 days from planting, and based on lettuce variety, they are best grown in zones 4-9 and can be started indoors to beat early frosts.
10. Summer Squash/ Zucchini
With Summer squash, you directly sow the seeds in quality soil, water them, and wait for them to grow and produce. Zucchini, a Summer Squash variety, grows in zones 3-10 and is harvested from day 35 onwards as they grow so quickly. (Learn How Long Does Zucchini Last)
12. Kale & Greens
In only 25 days, you can pick baby greens from kale or mustard greens for fast-growing crops. After that, you’ll have mature leaves in around 50-65 days. Kale grows well in the cold and can be cultivated all year in zones 8-10, although it can also be planted in zone 1. (Learn How To Harvest Kale, So It Keeps Growing)
13. Snow Peas
Peas deliver a decent harvest, yet you must plant many of them. The germination for snow peas takes about ten days, and at around 60 days, snow peas can be harvested. They thrive in zones 3 through 11.
16. Turnips
Turnips produce a bulb, and they have fast-growing turnip greens. Turnip greens take 40 days, and turnip roots are ready in 60 days. Market Express types can be ready in 30 days and best grown in zones 3-9.
What vegetables grow in 30 days?
Baby kale
Everyone should eat more kale, and there’s no better way than growing tender baby kale. When the soil is workable in early spring, seed thickly in raised garden beds or cold frames. Just avoid curly kale as it’s a slow grower. Smooth-leaved varieties like Red Russian take around 25 days, or you can select other strains that take 30 days for fresh produce.
Asian greens
Asian greens and Chinese cabbage deliver masses of ready-to-harvest foliage full of colors, textures, and flavors. You get mild-tasting spicy, and pungent. They are perfect for stir-fries with various colored leaves.
- Tatsoi – 21 days
- Mizuna – 30 days
- Giant Red mustards – 21 days
- Ruby Streaks’ – 21 days
Which Plant Will Grow in 2 Days?
Microgreens are nutrient-dense and expensive to purchase, yet they’re straightforward to grow. They’re tiny baby greens as you can harvest them between 10 and 25 days old and 1 to 3 inches tall.
Microgreens can be typical salad crops like arugula, lettuce, kale, spinach, and baby shoots of young root crops such as basil, carrots, radish, and beets. You can eat them as they are or toss handfuls into your salad bowl.
Grow the fastest-growing indoor vegetables in a shallow tray with 1 to 2 inches of moistened potting soil and packed seed sowing. Place the tray under grow lights as they need lots of light to grow fast. (Read Pepper Plant Indoors)
What Plants Can Grow in a Week?
Herbs
Not only do many herbs germinate and grow quick harvests, but you can also pluck the outer leaves when you need them. Basil sprouts in about four days, or chives, cilantro, and dill, which appear seven to 14 days after planting.
Vegetables
Most vegetable varieties of lettuce and radishes grow quickly. Cucumbers germinate in 7-10 days, as do mustard greens, spinach, scallions, and turnips. Squash, cantaloupe, and watermelon, with a four- to six-day germination period, are excellent garden additions.
Keep leafy greens soil moist to avoid bitterness and bolting.
When growing root vegetables, you can eat the root and leaves, and they don’t take up much space in your garden. (Learn What Kills Weeds Permanently)
You can sow seeds after pre-soaking as this will help germination in cooler months. Many crops can be harvested young for the impatient gardeners, or as we saw, you can eat fast-growing vegetables before they are ready to harvest and wait a bit longer for the full veggie to grow before you eat the sweet roots.
