These $8 Plants Are the Only Ones I’ve Never Killed (They’re Beginner-Friendly!)

Two things you need to know about me: I have no green thumb, and I’m a Brooklynite with limited outdoor space. Even so, I’ve always loved the idea of having a garden. While I know next to nothing about plants, I do love messing around in healthy, well aerated soil. So when I moved into an apartment with a deck that got tons of sunlight outside on the deck in the summer, I knew I wanted to try to grow a few plants. 

I knew getting into gardening would require a ton of research on my part. That’s why I was so excited when, in 2021, I was introduced to Burpee, a gardening company that sells both seeds and plants for home gardeners. I found out about them by way of a gift from a friend, who gave me a jalapeño hybrid pepper plant from Burpee.

For gardening newcomers, buying Burpee plants — rather than buying seeds — makes it way easier to get past the earliest stages of gardening and start with a nearly garden-ready plant. In fact, my small pepper plant had already sprouted and was about six inches tall when I got it. I dutifully followed the instructions that came with it, which told me to ease the plant into its outdoor environment a little at a time.

Over time, the pepper outgrew its small starter pot and blessed me with dozens and dozens of jalapeño peppers. It was the first time in my life that I had ever successfully grown a vegetable!

The next spring, I bought three more pepper plants: the jalapeño hybrid again, plus lemon pepper and dragon cayenne pepper. Bundling my plants gave me a little discount ($25 for three as opposed to about $8 each). 

Here’s what made the purchase so great, though. Instead of leaving me to my own (very inexperienced) devices, Burpee takes charge of timing. The company doesn’t send out plant orders right away; instead, they hold onto them until it’s warm enough in your area to plant. In other words, I didn’t have to guess when it was OK to bring my plants outside — Burpee figured out the best planting time for me. My plants arrived in mid-May contained in plastic cases that help preserve soil moisture during travel.

The website also helps you determine how much space you need in your planters, garden, or, in my case, large flower pots that I use for my peppers because I only have a deck. (This saved my garden-ignorant self from almost buying tomatoes, which wouldn’t have thrived in my limited space.)

My success was in part because pepper plants are hardy and easy to grow. All I needed to be able to provide them was adequate soil, sunshine, and water — but even when I didn’t give them enough water, they survived through any mismanagement I wrought on them.

Though my my second jalapeño plant did not perform quite as well as the one before, the dragon cayennes and lemon peppers were abundant, giving me dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of beautiful fresh peppers that I pickled, turned into salsas, and chopped up for use in daily meal prep. 

I’m now on my fourth year of my miniature pepper garden. Though we eat the peppers as they ripen on our deck throughout the summer, the best part of the whole experience is making gallons of my favorite tomatillo salsa (recipe from Javier’s, an outstanding Mexican restaurant in Dallas). I love sharing the coveted salsa with neighbors and friends! 

While Burpee sells plenty of packets of seeds for those willing to start their garden at the very beginning, I am not a green thumb and do not have the bravery to try that ahead of the next pepper-growing season. So knowing my limits — and knowing how badly I just want to have the pepper plants thrive without any chance of me messing it all up myself — I’ll keep buying Burpee’s pre-grown plants for the foreseeable future.

Right now, I’m growing more lemon peppers (they just have the fruitiest, spiciest taste), more dragon cayenne, and a new pepper: the armageddon hybrid pepper. The salsa will be on deck in November!