Small Space, Big Harvest: Our Favorite Garden Varieties This Season

If you’ve ever tried growing a garden with limited space, you know every inch counts. Ground Education practices square foot gardening in our school gardens, which means our Green Team is always on the lookout for compact, productive plants that are kid-friendly and can handle our coastal weather quirks. Foggy mornings? Limited room? No problem. Read on to learn what we’re growing this season and why we love these varieties!

🍂 Pumpkins: ‘Cinnamon Girl’
Pumpkins might seem like a no-go in small gardens, but Cinnamon Girl changes the game. It’s got shorter vines than your average pumpkin, which makes it the perfect fit for square foot gardening. That means we can still get our fall pumpkin fix without sacrificing all our space. Plus, it has moderate resistance to Powdery Mildew—a must in fog-prone areas. 

🥒 Zucchini Squash: ‘Green Machine’
Zucchini is a classic garden favorite, and Green Machine is a total winner for families. It has few spines (read: no scratchy arms!), an open growth habit that’s super kid-friendly for harvesting, and great air circulation to boot. Oh, and it’s Powdery Mildew resistant, too. 

🌱 Peas: ‘Oregon Giant’
These snow peas are crunchy, sweet, and totally edible, pod and all. Oregon Giant thrives in our gardens thanks to—you guessed it—Powdery Mildew resistance. We’re seeing a theme here. These are great for early spring or fall planting.

🥗 Lettuce Lineup: ‘Nevada’, ‘New Red Fire’, ‘Buttercrunch’, ‘Amanda’, and ‘Starfighter’
Lettuce lovers, this one’s for you. These varieties are champs when it comes to heat tolerance, which means we can start planting in late September and keep the salad train going well into fall. The variety of textures and colors make our gardens and salads look amazing.

🌻 Sunflowers: ‘Mammoth’
No garden feels complete without a few towering sunflowers, and Mammoth is our go-to. These guys grow fast, produce huge heads, and burst with seeds. The birds always sneak a few, but there are plenty to go around. Plus, they’re tough and disease-resistant—perfect for a no-fuss, feel-good crop. We like to save the seeds by storing them in a cool, dry shed or other area. 

Southern California is the perfect climate for an abundant amount of produce, and we hope you’ll start or grow your own garden as part of eating local and helping sustain our environment. Plus, who doesn’t like being able to say, “Hey, I grew that!” 

For these and more produce varieties, you can find seeds just about anywhere, but two of our favorite vendors are the local H&H Nursery and Johnny’s Selected Seeds.