Start These 7 Easy Crops Now for Home-Grown Smoothies by Summer

A backyard smoothie garden features vegetables, fruits, and herbs you can blend into a fresh homegrown smoothie packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. And you can do this in a large or small space. To help you on your way, I have picked seven perfect ingredients to grow your own smoothie.

The upsides of growing your own smoothie ingredients are that you enjoy the freshest harvests and a more sustainable gardening lifestyle. Your smoothie will taste much better and have less sugar, chemicals, preservatives, and food miles than store-bought products.

There are easy superfoods you can grow in the ground, raised beds, containers, or hanging baskets for fresh, organic produce to harvest for your healthy smoothies. Here I outline some of my favorites, along with some growing tips I’ve picked up over my years growing in various vegetable gardens, from small urban backyards to large walled kitchen gardens.

1. Kale

Kale is a trendy superfood to grow, and it can bring lots of vitamins, nutrients, fiber, and antioxidants to your smoothie. It is a wholly nutritious vegetable to grow with many health benefits.

However, when you harvest kale for smoothies, just remember to remove the tough stems, or your drink may end up a bit chewier than ideal.

Learning how to grow kale is simple. It can thrive in a vegetable garden, raised beds, or you can grow kale in pots to enjoy on a deck or balcony.

For the best harvests, keep plants covered to stop birds and insects from nibbling the leaves, and pick them as a cut-and-come-again vegetable by taking a few of the oldest, outer leaves at a time.

There are lots of different types of kale to grow, but the best for containers is dwarf blue curled, which grows to only a couple of feet tall and is hardy enough to overwinter in most climates. You can get dwarf blue curled kale seeds at Botanical Interests to sow in early spring.

2. Swiss Chard

Swiss chard is a vibrant vegetable with a rainbow of red, yellow, orange, or pink stems, depending on the variety.

However, it is the leaves you predominantly use in smoothies. The fibrous stems need chopping small and blitzing, plus too much can bring bitterness to the drink.

Chard overall has a mild taste and is packed with nutrients, vitamins, and iron. The best tactic is to combine your freshly-harvested Swiss chard with different fruits to balance out the flavors.

Thankfully, it is an easy vegetable to grow, and you can grow Swiss chard in the ground or in containers.

For success, you should plant Swiss chard seeds in spring, and you will enjoy harvests from summer onwards. A couple of key steps are to plant somewhere sunny with well-draining soil, and keep chard well watered during dry spells.

For a bright display of stems, sow these Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ seeds from Burpee for a selection of colorful crops to enjoy.

3. Spinach

Spinach is a highly versatile crop for a grow-your-own smoothie garden. It is simple to grow in beds or containers, and it is another that you can harvest over a long period by picking the larger, outer leaves and letting the inner ones continue to grow.

Spinach is an excellent smoothie ingredient, not only because its mild flavor complements stronger fruits, but also because of its significant nutritional benefits. It is highly valued for being loaded with essential nutrients like vitamins, iron, magnesium, and antioxidants.

Start growing spinach in spring and, as it is a fast-growing vegetable, you can harvest baby spinach leaves within just a few weeks. As the crop is liable to bolt in hot weather, sow or plant spinach first in spring, then again in late summer or early fall for year-round harvests.

If you want to grow spinach in pots, fill a large container with a quality soil for container gardening (such as this Miracle-Gro potting mix at Amazon) and keep the plant consistently moist during hot weather to prevent bolting.

You can get bolt-resistant varieties to plant, such as these Space Spinach Seeds at Burpee, that can go from sowing to picking in as little as 40 days.

4. Beets

Beets have more health benefits than you know, including their anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties. Or how they help to lower blood pressure and improve gut health. As well as being rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, they bring sweet, earthy flavors to any smoothie – and can transform the color.

If that sounds good to you, the other dose of good news is that growing beets is really simple. There are different types of beets you can grow, including yellow and white ones, but only the red varieties have betacyanin, which is thought to suppress some forms of cancer.

You can plant beets directly into the soil after the frosts, and a great tactic is to sow successionally (every few weeks) all the way through till late summer for a long, steady harvest of beets.

Start harvesting beets once they are at least the size of a golf ball. They can be added to smoothies either raw or cooked, depending on your preference.

Detroit dark red beets are a classic variety that can be picked small and tender, and the greens are also very nutritious. You can get Detroit dark red beet seeds at Botanical Interests to sow for your homegrown smoothies.

5. Cucumber

Cucumbers can evoke images of spa retreats (picture cucumber slices on people’s eyes) and definitely have their benefits when you want to grow your own smoothie.

They bring a refreshing, sweet note, and their high water content helps with hydration. Cucumbers also offer lots of vitamins and minerals, while being low in calories.

To grow cucumbers, you often need more space than other vegetables on this list. Most cucumbers grow vertically and require a trellis or structure to train them to, but there are compact plants that produce mini cucumbers to pick if you want to grow cucumbers in pots on a deck or balcony.

You can plant cucumber seeds in spring to start plants off indoors in a greenhouse or on a warm windowsill to extend the season. Alternatively, wait until after the last frosts to sow seeds outdoors.

The best cucumbers for smoothies are English cucumbers, as they have thin skin that you don’t need to peel. So growing a variety such as Telegraph Improved, which you get seeds of at Botanical Interests, removes that extra bit of work.

6. Blueberries

Blueberries are a superfood that is rich in vitamins and antioxidants. They make a healthy, versatile ingredient for any homegrown smoothie. Blueberries are not only tasty, but can aid heart health, brain function, and regular digestion, among a long list of other benefits.

The best time to plant blueberries is in spring or fall, and well-maintained bushes can last you for many years. A key to success with growing blueberries is planting them in their preferred acidic soil, which is why many gardeners grow blueberries in pots to create ideal growing conditions for the crop.

Harvest blueberries in midsummer to early fall. You can use them straight away or freeze blueberries for future use. A benefit of adding frozen homegrown blueberries to a smoothie is that, in addition to adding tangy flavor, they thicken the texture. It reduces the need to use ice.

See the range of blueberry plants at Burpee

7. Strawberries

Strawberries are a classic smoothie ingredient, but you can’t do better than growing your own strawberries to pick at home. In a nutshell, strawberries are rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, and they add a sweet, tangy flavor to any homemade smoothie.

Just like blueberries, frozen strawberries are perfect for smoothies because they provide a creamy, chilled texture without needing much ice.

Strawberry plants are readily available either bare-root or container-grown, and they can be planted in the ground, raised beds, containers, or hanging baskets. The beauty of growing strawberries in pots is that you can enjoy scrumptious homegrown pickings on a deck or patio.

It can take just a few months from planting strawberries to picking fresh strawberries to add to your smoothie.

See a range of strawberry plants at Burpee

If you want to grow your own smoothie, herbs should also be a mainstay. The likes of mint, basil, lemon balm, and rosemary all make great candidates, and you don’t need lots of space to grow herbs at home.

To help you make the most of a small space, these guides to growing herbs in pots and growing herbs indoors are full of useful information to help you get great pickings at home for homegrown smoothies.