Planning • Basic Info • Easy Annuals • Easy Perennials • Fun Ideas
EASY ANNUALS
Annual plants can be a fun and easy way to show your students a lifecycle from beginning to end in a single season. They can also make for some really good eating! Click on each vegetable to view a USU Extension Fact sheet that will provide more information.
Lettuce
These cool-weather crops grow quickly and early in the season, giving your students the opportunity to plant and eat them in the same school year. Many colorful varieties are available and can bring excitement to your classroom. Best of all, these plants are extremely easy to grow in a wide variety of soil and light conditions. Harvest before flower stalks begin to form; once lettuce "bolts" (begins to form flower stalks) it will become milky and bitter tasting.
Spinach
Like lettuce, spinach can be started early and even eaten in the same school year it is planted. Care is need though, as spinach does not compete well with weeds. Harvest before flower stalks begin to form; once the spinach "bolts" (begins to form flower stalks) it will become milky and bitter tasting.
Radishes
These exciting little plants grow quickly, forming a round, red, edible root that tastes peppery and can be quite spicy. The rapid and "magical" underground growth may be enough to excite your students into tasting them, these plants can be started early in the year and will do well in soil that is not too rocky (with many rocks, the root will become bumpy and mis-shapen). They don't need much room or attendance-just water them regularly and make sure the weeds don't grow too close to them, especially while they are young.
Zucchini
Good for year-round schools, zucchini needs to be planted after the last average frost date and will take 1-2 months of growing before it begins to make the fruit. (Yep, zucchini is a fruit... for more information, take a loot at Utah AITC's Fruit and Veggie bulletin boards.) However, once this low-maintenance plant does start producing, good luck getting it to stop! Try sending the zucchini home with students when you run out of ideas for using it in your classroom.
