Heirloom vegetables are vegetables that reach back to before hybridization and commercial growing. Tomatoes and beans are some of the most popular heirloom vegetables. Heirlooms are usually more tender, tastier and often more colorful than commercial vegetables. If you grow heirloom beans, there's a good chance that you want to save the beans as seeds to give to friends or grow again next year.

Every time you throw away an old apple core or peach pit, you might as well be throwing away money. The seeds you are throwing away could grow into your own fruit-producing plant, cutting the cost of buying fruit from the store. These seeds require a little more preparation than simply pulling them from the fruit and dropping them into some soil, but with the proper knowledge, you can grow your own fruit right in your home garden.

Fava beans, also called broad beans, grow on a type of vetch plant. These bushy, upright plants produce pods that contain between three and 15 beans, depending on the specific variety. Fava beans are cool-season vegetables, thriving in early spring and late fall when few other vegetables are growing. The seeds are usually direct-sown into the garden bed. Like other beans, fava creates its own nitrogen in the soil. Because of this, the plants require little fertilization in order to remain productive.