20 Edible Plants You Should Grow In Your Italian Garden

Grow an Edible Italian Garden if you like to eat Italian food. You’ll always have the best vegetables and herbs around. Is there little space in your garden? You can still grow them in containers!
If you want to cook Italian food, you need these herbs and vegetables at the top. And even if you don’t have a garden, you can even grow them in small pots or containers.

Italian Basil

It’s easy to make a quick pesto sauce with leaves you’ve just picked from your pasta. When making soups, salads, salsas, and even desserts, basil is a must.

How to Grow Basil: It’s easy to grow basil in pots. You can even plant it in a small container like other herbs, and put it in a warm and sunny place.

Make sure you read this to find out why you should use leftover pasta water on your plants.

Italian Chicory

Despite looking like cabbage or red lettuce, the leaves of radicchio are bitter and meaty. There are a lot of ways you can use them, like in salads, on the grill, or to make sauces and pasta fillings. You can also steam them as a side dish to help soothe an upset stomach.

It’s easy to grow: Radicchio is hardy and grows well in cool weather. The best time to grow this is in the winter in places where the winters aren’t too cold.

Spinach

Italian Spinach Recipes are a good way to feed your Italian spirit. Saute the leaves in olive oil, or put them in a spinach-based dish. Besides being an excellent source of fiber and vitamins, spinach is also easy to grow in small containers.

How to Grow: Here is our detailed step-by-step guide to growing.

Cima di Rapa

Cima di Rapa is a type of broccoli. It is quick to grow and hardy enough to grow in places where there isn’t a lot of room for other plants. When stir-fried with olive oil, garlic, and chili flakes, or in a salad, this is very good.

How to Grow: Cima di Rapa needs full sun, good drainage, regular watering, and some staking to grow into a big, healthy plant that can produce a lot. As it can be grown in a small space, it’s easy to grow in containers because it’s small.

Lettuce

Crispy, fresh head lettuce leaves are often used in salads, brushed with olive oil, and then grilled. This is what most people do.

How to Grow: It’s very easy to grow this leafy green in pots. Full to part sunlight, rich soil, cool weather, and a slightly wet growing medium are what plants need to grow well. Here, you can learn how to grow lettuce in containers.

Red Onions

Red onions have a strong taste and are used in almost every type of food. They like to bake them with eggplants and oregano in Italy.

It’s best to choose an onion-growing pot that is at least 10 inches deep and wide enough to fit all of your onions. Keep 3 inches of space between each plant. Keep the planter in full sun.

Eggplant

Silky, tender eggplant is at the heart of many Italian dishes, like eggplant parm and caponata, as well as molto pasta and pizza recipes that are very tasty.

How to Grow: This tropical vegetable needs warm temperatures and a lot of water. In the same way that tomatoes and peppers can be grown in containers, eggplant can be grown as well.

Rosemary

When you grow an Edible Italian garden in a container, don’t forget to plant rosemary. You can use it to make seafood, meats, baked potatoes, and almost any other dish that needs a little extra something.

How to Grow: Plant rosemary in a pot that is 10 to 12 inches deep. Place it in a place that gets a lot of sunlight and water it moderately.

Allium Porrum

You can cook this vegetable with bell peppers, garlic, eggs, and even fish if you want. It’s also known as “wild leeks.” You can try them as a sautéed starter dish or add them to a healthy vegetable soup.

To grow, choose a pot that is 8-10 inches deep and grow it in a place that gets at least 6 hours of direct sun. Check out more of it here!

Bell Pepper

It doesn’t matter which color bell pepper is: red, yellow, orange, green, or purple. They can add both color and flavor to the recipes you make. You can roast them to make antipasti like they do in Italian restaurants, like they do in the movies.

Bell peppers are easy to grow in pots. They need a lot of sunlight and a place that is warm and dry to grow well. The detailed guide to growing is here, and you can read it.

Cauliflower

Despite the fact that cauliflower doesn’t sound Italian, this is a great ingredient that can be used to add a little crunch to pasta, soups, and roasted sides. Mix it with pasta, make fritters out of it, or put it on top of pizza crusts.

How to Grow: It turns out that growing cauliflowers in pots is a lot of fun and easy. The growing guide is here.

Roma Tomatoes

If you want to use home-grown tomatoes in Italian cooking, don’t forget to grow Plum tomatoes. The regular tomatoes have more water and less ‘flesh’ in them. Roma or Plum tomatoes, on the other hand, have a lot of meaty flesh and few seeds. You can use them to make sun-dried tomatoes, passata, or tomato sauce that is already in a can or a bottle.

It’s easy to grow San Marzano tomatoes, which are the most famous Italian plum tomatoes. Growing them is the same as growing other types of tomatoes.

Artichoke

If you have a garden in Italy, you’re likely to see a lot of this edible thistle in the borders or in the flower beds. There are more artichokes grown in Italy than anywhere else in the world. You can add steamed artichokes to soups, or roast them with olives and fava beans for a fiber-rich diet. The web is full of traditional Italian recipes for artichokes, as well.

California is a good place to grow artichokes because it has mild winters and warm temperatures. Plants need pots that are at least 36 inches wide and half deep.

Thyme

This herb is used a lot in Italian food, and it goes well with chicken and fish recipes. It is the main herb in soups and stews, but it also goes well with tomatoes and roasted potatoes.

How to Grow: Thyme, like other Mediterranean herbs, likes to be warm. You can grow it indoors near a window that gets a lot of sunlight.

Fennel

Two types of fennel that you can grow are Herb Fennel and Florence fennel (Bulb fennel). The herb fennel has delicate, fine leaves that are often used to garnish salads and roasts. The bulb, which is the swollen base of the stem, is used as a vegetable and is braised whole or roasted as a crunchy side dish to go with roasted fish.

How to Grow: Both of them grow the same way. Plant them in a pot at least 8-10 inches wide and keep them in full sun.

Oregano

Oregano isn’t as common in Italian recipes as parsley or basil are, but it’s still important to have in the herb. Add a little spice to your sauce or dish by adding a little pepper. Pizza and pasta are two of the foods that use pepper.

How to Grow: Oregano grows well in containers, even if there isn’t a lot of sunlight or heat. If there is, it can even grow inside. Keep this herb in full to partial sun and water it only a little, but not too much.

Broccoli

Broccoli has rich green, crisp, and strong florets, making it one of the most nutritious vegetables. You may bake, sauté, or grill it, or add it to salads or soups; the possibilities are endless.

How to Grow: You can grow one broccoli plant in a container that is about 8 to 10 inches in size. well-drained soil and water in a way that keeps the soil slightly moist while it grows.

Beans

It doesn’t matter if you grow Cannellini or Borlotti beans. They’ll add an authentic Italian taste to your minestrone and vegetable au gratin. The Borlotti type is a large red bean with a lot of speckles. The Cannellini type, on the other hand, makes beautiful cream-colored beans. Both types can be dried for use in the winter.

How to Grow: Both of them can be grown in containers, but the Borlotti beans are best for this (also called Cranberry beans). Keep the plants in full sun and give them support.

Squash Flowers

It’s common for squash flowers to be zucchini flowers. You can eat them raw in salads, cook them, or stuff and fry them, which makes the petals crispy and delicious.

How to Grow: The best thing is that you can eat these flowers if you grow zucchini. When you pick male flowers, you won’t get any fruit from them. This is where you can learn how to eat squash blossoms in five different ways.

Parsley

Parsley is a favorite Italian herb because it has a unique, refreshing taste. It can be used in any roast recipes, pasta, or casseroles. Here are the 25 things we found interesting about parsley. When you chop up fresh parsley leaves, they go well with most savory foods and recipes from all over the world.

This herb is one of the easiest to grow, and it doesn’t need a lot of attention. The best way to grow parsley is in a small but wide pot. Place this herb in an area that gets full to part sun and keep the soil slightly moist.

Marjoram

You can use this marjoram herb instead of oregano in the same way. It has a milder taste than oregano. It is possible to add leaves, flower petals, and tender stems to stews as well as poultry stuffing and syrup. They can also be used in salad dressings and cheese mixture for sauces and spreads as well as seafood, omelets, pizza and sausage. An interesting article about how to use Marjoram in Italian cooking is here. You should read it!

How to Grow Marjoram: Marjoram is an annual herb, like its other Mediterranean cousins. Also, you can grow it on a window sill; a small 6 inches pot is enough for one plant.