NEW YEAR, NEW CROPS

As you make your garden plans for this season, consider these picks from growers across the country.

- BY LISA MUNNIKSMA

Heading into a new year, with every seed company's website open on your computer and your collection of seeds spread out on the floor around you, the excitement and overwhelm of deciding what to plant this year is real. Heirlooms, crops from your childhood and family history, high-producing hybrids, and plants chosen solely for their beauty all deserve their place in your garden. Narrowing the choices to the best crops to grow in 2026 is daunting.

To help you sort through all those options, I asked a few of my farming and gardening friends about their must-grow crops. To their list, I added a few plants I've recently put on my own favorite-plants list. Some of these crops were new to us last year, and some we've been growing for as long as we've been growing anything. From this list, you may get inspiration for your own garden.

Okra varieties (above) include Santiago Painted, Indian, Clemson Spineless and others.

OKRA

Ashokra Farm, co-farmed by Anita Ashok Adalja, grows and sells 14 varieties of okra, which is no easy feat in New Mexico, where okra isn't a traditionally grown crop. Ashok Adalja, also founder of the nonprofit storytelling project Not Our Farm, appreciates that she can eat okra's flowers, greens and pods; the flowers are stunning; and she can chop the stalk as mulch. She also likes drying the pods to sell as okra chips in three flavors. Of Indian descent, okra is an important heritage crop, as well.

Among Ashok Adalja’s favorite varieties are:

SANTIAGO PAINTED: These okra pods look like they've been painted green on one side and blush on the other. From Sistah Seeds (www.sistahseeds.com)