In all of the excitement of planting your vegetable garden, you forgot to label the rows of greenery. Now you’re looking at lines of little green seedlings (or a tangled mess of adult plants), and wondering what’s going on in your garden.
Before you throw in the trowel and call it quits on gardening, let’s see if we can sort this out. Here’s a basic introduction to vegetable plant identification.
Identifying the Most Common Vegetable Plants
While we always love when PlantSnap can help people identify photos (you just need your phone, an adult plant, and decent lighting to identify plants with PlantSnap), there are always limitations. PlantSnap can’t identify seedlings or damaged plants, so it’s best to be able to identify vegetable plants without your phone.
Once you’ve identified the vegetable plants in your garden, it’s probably time to get them labeled!
Unfortunately, we probably won’t be able to guide you through exactly which variety of vegetable plant you have in your garden (there are just too many). If you’ve planted four different varieties of carrots, you’ll have to wait until the harvest to figure out which is which.
Beans
Seedling: The first two leaves of a seedling bean will look heart-shaped. When the plant is very young, you might be able to find the outer shells of the bean on the plant or very nearby.
General Structure: Climbing and vinelike or bushy, depending on the variety
Leaves: Come in trios, smooth edges. Two grow opposite each other with a third above. They generally are green or purple.
Flowers: Generally white, pink, or purple. They are shaped somewhat like an elephant’s head, with big upright petals and a “keel” protruding out and down.
Vegetables: Bean pods are generally visible from mid-summer onwards, helping make this plant easy to identify.
Notable Characteristics: Look for elephant head-like flowers or bean pods.
Lookalikes: Pea plants. Peas will have more tendrils and have slightly more hollow-ish stems.
Beets
Seedling: Beet seedlings have smooth, long leaves with pink or purple stems. Multiple seedlings may grow from a single seed.
General Structure: Beets grow underground, so the plant isn’t much to look at. Beet plants look a bunch of leaves growing in a bunch, somewhat like lettuce.
Leaves: Long and smooth with pronounced purple or pink veins.
Flowers: Beet flowers are long stalks with tiny greenish-white flowers. Beet flowers are undesirable because it means the plant is sending energy to flowers instead of growing beets. Learn all about preventing your beets from bolting here.
Vegetables: Beets grow underground, so you’re unlikely to see them unless you swipe away a bit of dirt. They vary in size from golf ball (or smaller) to nearly bowling ball sized. They are generally a deep purplish color.
Notable Characteristics: Look for the pink stems and the tops of a beet poking up.
Lookalikes: With its long leaves and pink stems, a beet plant can look like colorful swiss chard. Swiss chard tastes similar to beet greens, so there’s little to lose by mixing them up. You can generally see a bit of the top of a mature beet poking out if you really can’t figure out which you’re looking at!
Cabbage
Seedling: Cabbage seedlings have roundish leaves with very small teeth. As they grow, they get a thick center stem and the characteristic dusty green color (unless you’re growing purple cabbage).
General Structure: Cabbage is pretty consistent as it grows – it’s got a round structure with a ball-like clump of leaves in the center.
Leaves: Roundish with highly visible whiteish veins, slightly toothed. Cabbage leaves tend to curl back a bit from the center of the plant.
Flowers: Cabbage flowers late in the season. Essentially, the center of the plant opens into a flower. Ornamental varieties of cabbage (yes, they’re a thing) have a gorgeous pink hue.
Vegetables: The cabbage vegetable is that big ball of leaves right in the center.
Notable Characteristics: Simply look for the ball of leaves in the center, with prominent veins.
Lookalikes: Cabbage is relatively easy to identify. Cauliflower has similar leaves, but the big white florets in the center of cauliflower are a dead giveaway!
Carrots
Seedling: Very young carrots have long, thin, grass-like leaves. As they get a bit older, they spread into a feathery, fern-like shape.
General Structure: Long, bright green and fern-like leaves with a long root (the carrot) below. Can be fluffy or quite tall.
Leaves: See above.
Flowers: Flowers only appear during the second year of a carrot’s life. If you’re seeing flowers, the plant is two years old! The flowers are an umbrella-shaped spread of small, white flowers.
Vegetables: The carrot vegetable is unmistakable — long, narrow, and generally bright orange. Carrots can also be white or a deep purpleish color. The carrot itself won’t show above ground in most growing conditions.
Notable Characteristics: Look for fern-like, feathery leaves.
Lookalikes: Many other wild plants look similar to carrots, including Queen Anne’s Lace (also edible) and Hemlock (poisonous). Hemlock has purple or black spots on its smooth stem, while Queen Anne’s Lace has a hairy stem. Carrots generally don’t have much of a central stem at all!
Cauliflower
Seedling: Teeny-tiny baby cauliflower looks quite a bit like a cabbage seedling. They’ve got rounded leaves with small teeth and prominent veins. Within just a few weeks, it should be easy to tell a cauliflower from a cabbage!
General Structure: As cauliflower grows, a big white floret appears in the center of the plant. This is pretty unmistakable and really helps differentiate the cauliflower from the cabbage. Cauliflowers grow very low to the ground, with the “head” sitting just off the dirt.
Leaves: Cauliflower leaves are roundish with thick white stems. They are slightly toothed and have a faintly dusty hue. They encircle the white cauliflower floret.
Flowers: The white floret in the center of a cauliflower (the edible part) is actually compacted, undeveloped flowers.
Vegetables: The flowers and the “vegetable” are the same part of this plant.
Notable Characteristics: Large, white floret in the center of the plant.
Lookalikes: Young cauliflower may resemble cabbage.
Cucumber
Seedling: The seedling cucumber has leaves that are toothed and wrinkled with visible veins.
General Structure: Cucumber plants are crawling, climbing, or vine-like plants that quickly take over many gardens. They have large leaves, yellow flowers, and produce many cucumbers per plant.
Leaves: Cucumber leaves are large (often bigger than your hand) with five rough points. The leaves are slightly toothed, but this is difficult to notice from a distance.
Flowers: Cucumber flowers are pale to bright yellow, with fused petals that split into points further from the stem.
Vegetables: Cucumbers are long, cylindrical, and green. They can range in size to finger-sized to nearly the size of your forearm. They look quite similar to zucchini.
Notable Characteristics: Look for a climbing, crawling, vine-like plant that produces long, cylindrical, green veggies.
Lookalikes: Cucumbers and zucchini are easily confused at the supermarket, but not in the garden!. The zucchini plant doesn’t grow into a climbing, vine-like behemoth as cucumber plants do — instead, it’s more of a bushy collection of leaves and vegetables. Zucchini also has thick yet hollow stems that can be crunched between your fingers.
Eggplant
Seedling: The eggplant seedling has smooth, bright green leaves with a rounded tip.
General Structure: A relatively tall plant with purplish stems, eggplant grows with the eggplants hanging rather than on the ground (as many people would suspect).
Leaves: Adult eggplant leaves are large with purplish stems and veins. They are heavily toothed and much longer than they are wide.
Flowers: Eggplant flowers are beautiful, with five or six fused bright purple petals and a bright yellow stamen.
Vegetables: The eggplant itself is hard to miss – it hangs from the plant and is a deep, rich purple. They often grow to the size of a water bottle or larger.
Notable Characteristics: Look for a purple stem that is much less red than the stem of okra.
Lookalikes: Eggplant doesn’t have any close lookalikes that you’re likely to find in your garden.
Kale
Seedling: Kale seedlings come in a variety of shapes and colors, depending on the variety of kale in your garden. It’s best to hold off identification until they’re a bit older for most amateurs.
General Structure: Kale is generally a bushy plant with wildly curled leaves. It doesn’t have much beyond leaves and the stems are short, keeping the plant low to the ground.
Leaves: Kale ranges in color from deep green to dusty purple. They are generally tough, curly-edged, and bushy. That said, certain varieties are much more (or much less) curly than others.
Flowers: Kale varieties grown for eating rarely have traditional flowers.
Vegetables: You eat the curled leaves of kale and it does not produce any traditional “vegetables.”
Notable Characteristics: The curliest and toughest of the leafy plants.
Lookalikes: While spinach and many lettuce varieties are also quite leafy, they’re nowhere near as curly-leaved and bushy as kale.
Kohlrabi
Seedling: Kohlrabi seedlings look similar to cabbage or cauliflower seedlings, with rounded leaves and pronounced veins. Wait a few weeks to see how the plant matures, and remember that kohlrabi is much less common than cabbage or cauliflower in most gardens.
General Structure: At a distance, the leaves of kohlrabi resemble those of some lettuces. As you get closer, you realize that the stalks are too long and the leaves are too big. The edible part of kohlrabi grows as a above-ground, bulb-like circle. It’s hard to miss, and pretty weird when fully grown!
Leaves: Kohlrabi leaves are large and long, with pronounced stems that differentiate them from cabbage or cauliflower stems. They have visible white veins and curly to toothed leaves.
Flowers: Flowers are small and yellow, growing on tall stalks above the rest of the plant.
Vegetables: Kohlrabi is a pretty strange vegetable that you won’t find in many supermarkets. It’s roundish and grows above ground with leaves growing from it. They can be as large as a softball and are pale green.
Notable Characteristics: The above-ground vegetable is hard to miss!
Lookalikes: None as the plant matures.
Lettuce
Seedling: Lettuce seedlings are generally a bright green. Depending on the variety, the leaves can take a variety of shapes. There is no clear central stem.
General Structure: There are many varieties of lettuce. In general, the plant grows close to the ground with a clump of leaves. There is no clear central stem.
Leaves: Leaves vary, but are generally at least hand-sized. They may have purple hues or stems or can be any shade of green. They can be smooth or toothed and may be curly as well.
Flowers: If left to grow for too long, lettuce “bolts,” where a single stalk grows up from the center, often at least a foot or two long. The flowers are unremarkable, small and white.
Vegetables: The leaves are the edible part of lettuce plants.
Notable Characteristics: Lettuce is a varied group of plants, which can make it confusing to identify at first.
Lookalikes: Spinach and kale may be similar. Spinach is a dark, glossy green with longer stems. Kale is tough and very curly-leaved.
Leeks
Seedling: Much like onion, leek seedlings look quite a bit like grass. They just have a few long, narrow leaves and no central stalk.
General Structure: Leek plants quickly grow into something quite different from an onion. They have a central stalk make up of the stems of all of the leaves. The “stalk” area is quite short, so the plant never gets very talll.
Leaves: The leaves are thick and curled slightly, but otherwise are similar to a grass or corn leaf. They grow bilaterally, not all the way around the stalk.
Flowers: It’s unusual to see leek flowers in your garden until very late in the season. Then, you will see a long stalk with a ball of tiny white or purple flowers on top.
Vegetables: You eat the whitish root of leeks, below ground.
Notable Characteristics: Look for the bilateral growth of leek leaves to separate them from other root veggies with long, grass-like leaves.
Lookalikes: Young leeks may closely resemble onions or chives, but quickly grow into a more robust plant with thicker leaves. Leek plants may also closely resemble some lilies, but they won’t have the pretty flowers!
Okra
Seedling: Okra seedlings have roughly heart-shaped leaves, rounded with toothed edges. Some varieties may have pink or purple stems.
General Structure: This is a very tall plant, easily growing to taller than a person. It has large leaves and a slender stalk. The stalk is generally green but may be purplish red in some varieties.
Leaves: Large, heart-shaped leaves with slightly toothed edges.
Flowers: White flowers with a purple center that resemble the Hawaiian Hibiscus flower.
Vegetables: Okra grows from where the flowers were, all up and down the plant. They are slightly sticky, with little hairs. They are roughly shaped like a Jalapeno. They are generally green but may be purplish red in some varieties.
Notable Characteristics: Okra plants are very sticky, especially if stems are broken. The okra itself grows upwards rather than hanging down.
Lookalikes: It’s hard to mistake this sticky plant for any other vegetable! There are several common weeds that resemble okra, so be sure to be vigilant with identification and removal of imposters.
Onion
Seedling: Baby onion plants look a bit like grass, with just a few stalk-like leaves poking up.
General Structure: Above the onion itself, onion plants look a lot like leeks. They have a bundle of long, grass-like leaves that tend to flop over as they lengthen. Below the bundle of leaves, though, there’s an unmistakable top of an onion. This may be harder to see in young plants.
Leaves: Long and grasslike, growing out from a central bundle and tending to fold over as they grow.
Flowers: Quite similar to leeks, onion flowers are a rounded ball of tiny white flowers on a tall stalk.
Vegetables: The onion grows partially underground, but roughly ⅓ to ¼ of the onion generally will show above the dirt.
Notable Characteristics: Look for the top of an onion protruding above the soil.
Lookalikes: Onions can look quite a bit like leeks, shallots, or even chives at various stages of their lives. They are the only with a large onion bulb, though! They also may look like lilies, but again, lilies will lack the onion bulb.
Parsnip
Seedling: Parsnip seedlings are bright green, with leaves that range from rounded hearts to three-lobed. They are slightly toothed, growing bushier as they age.
General Structure: Parsnip is a short plant with many stems originating from the ground and no central stalk. The parsnip itself is a root, much like carrots.
Leaves: Parsnip leaves are roughly three-lobed with toothed edges. They’re about palm sized and look somewhat like cilantro leaves.
Flowers: Parsnip flowers are very small and bright yellow, growing in in a loose umbrella shape.
Vegetables: Parsnip is a root vegetable, much like carrot. The veggie itself is long and white, generally a bit thicker and longer than your average carrot.
Notable Characteristics: Look for large, somewhat cilantro-like leaves on a short plant.
Lookalikes: Luckily, this plant doesn’t look much like its toxic relatives, cow parsnip and wild parsnip.
Shallots
Seedling: Look for thin, long leaves that closely resemble grass, onions, or leeks.
General Structure: Shallots, like their relatives, look like a bunch of grass-like leaves poking from a bundle in the ground. The shallot itself is below ground and may look like a very small onion.
Leaves: Long, grass-like leaves that roll in on themselves. Shallot leaves are often dead at the tip.
Flowers: Like onions and leeks, shallots have a flower that is a burst of tiny white flowers on a single long stalk.
Vegetables: The shallot itself grows below ground. It looks much like a small onion, but won’t poke up above ground as much as an onion.
Notable Characteristics: Look for the rolled leaves to help distinguish from its relatives.
Lookalikes: Shallots broadly resemble onions and leeks. Leeks are larger, more robust plants while onions will have a much larger bulb.
Sweet Potatoes
Seedling: Distinguishable by their arrow-shaped leaves with prominent points near the stem, often have slightly purple undersides.
General Structure: A short, bushy plant with arrow-shaped leaves. Sweet potato often grows quite dense and low to the ground.
Leaves: Arrow-shaped and slightly glossy, with a slightly purplish underside.
Flowers: Sweet potato flowers look a lot like morning glory flowers, with a white trumpet-shaped flower. The interior of the flower is often purple.
Vegetables: Sweet potatoes are large reddish tubers that protrude slightly above the ground.
Notable Characteristics: Look for low, bushy plants with arrow-shaped leaves.
Lookalikes: There aren’t many common lookalikes for sweet potatoes that you’re likely to find in your garden.
Tomato
Seedling: Young tomato plants quickly develop the characteristic toothed, lobed leaves of tomato plants.
General Structure: Tomato plants grow to be quite bushy, and often need to be staked or caged to keep them upright.
Leaves: Tomato leaves are complicated, with toothed edges and a roughly arrowhead shape. They can also be quite large, up to palm sized.
Flowers: Small and yellow
Vegetables: Tomato fruit grow out of where the flowers were. They start green and then may mature to yellow, purple, or red. Tomato fruit vary greatly based on the variety of plant in your garden.
Notable Characteristics: The leaves of tomato plants are quite distinct.
Lookalikes: None that are commonly found in gardens.
Peas
Seedling: Almost immediately, pea plants will grow little tendrils that reach out, looking for something to climb on. Look for tendrils to identify peas.
General Structure: Peas are climbing plants with odd leaves that encircle the stem of the plant.
Leaves: One type of leaf encircles the stem of the plant, similar to a lion’s mane. Pea plants also sport oval shaped leaves that grow opposite each other on the outer branches.
Flowers: Pea flowers are usually white, though they may be pink or purple. They look almost like elephants, with a big petal behind the others and then a keel below.
Vegetables: Peas hang from the plant where the flowers once were. Peas are long, thin, and green. The pea pod may be quite plump or rather flat, depending on the variety in your garden.
Notable Characteristics: The tendrils of peas are a dead giveaway.
Lookalikes: Pea plants broadly resemble beans, but have quite different leaves. Pea plants are also much more prone to climb than beans.
Peppers
Seedling: Pepper seedlings still sport the smooth-edged, shiny leaf of adult plants.
General Structure: Pepper plants are relatively tall, growing up to roughly knee or hip height in some cases. They are quite bushy with simple, smooth leaves.
Leaves: Simple and smooth, pepper leaves tend to have a shine to them. Veins are visible but not overly prominent.
Flowers: White, with 5-9 pointed petals around a prominent center.
Vegetables: Peppers are a widely varied bunch. The pepper itself may be small and green (Serrano or Jalapeno) or large and almost any color (bell peppers). There are plenty of rarer pepper types to keep you guessing. All peppers are slightly waxy, and if cut are hollow inside.
Notable Characteristics: Look for simple, smooth, shiny leaves.
Lookalikes: Basil has similar leaves, but they tend to curl back while pepper leaves are pointed. Basil will also stay much smaller than most pepper plants.
Potatoes
Seedling: Potato seedlings have rounded leaves with a textured surface, with rough leaf surfaces and indented veins.
General Structure: Potatoes grow as a low, bushy plant with multiple potato tubers growing underground.
Leaves: Potato leaves are simple, with smooth edges and pointed tips. Their veins are slightly indented, giving the leaves a puckered look.
Flowers: Potato flowers are white, with fused petals and a prominent central stigma that is generally yellow.
Vegetables: Potatoes grow below ground, with multiple tubers per plant.
Notable Characteristics: Look for the simple, slightly wrinkled leaves on a low-growing bushy plant. You might also find the true fruit of a potato plant at times, which looks slightly like a tomato.
Lookalikes: There are no common look-alikes that are likely to show up in your garden.
Pumpkins
Seedling: Once they have more than two leaves (they have the typical smooth, rounded baby leaves at first), pumpkin seedlings have rounded leaves prominent teeth.
General Structure: A long, trailing vine that quickly takes over the garden if not planted carefully. Leaves are large and rough, stems have slight spines or hairs.
Leaves: Large, circular, and lobed with hairs and an overall rough texture.
Flowers: Large, floppy orange flowers that look soft.
Vegetables: Pumpkins start out green, growing on the ground from the vine. They quickly mature into the large jack-o-lantern-like gourds we’re used to seeing in October.
Notable Characteristics: The plant is so rough and spiny, most people work with it wearing gloves.
Lookalikes: Since pumpkins are a type of squash, they look a lot like them! Some varieties of pumpkin, therefore, are nearly impossible to tell apart from squash. For amateurs, it’s often best to wait to see what the gourds mature into.
Radishes
Seedling: Seedling radishes have roughly heart-shaped leaves, with the point of the heart being the stem. The leaves are smooth and the veins are very small. They are almost identical to turnip seedlings.
General Structure: Radishes look like little more than a bundle of leaves from above-ground. The radish itself grows below ground.
Leaves: The leaves are long and slightly toothed and lobed, somewhat similar to dandelion leaves from a distance. The stems are longer with a whitish hue.
Flowers: Flowers have four petals with pinkish purple on the tips.
Vegetables: The radish itself grows under the dirt, though its reddish top may poke up above ground as it matures.
Notable Characteristics: The radish is significantly smaller than most other underground vegetables.
Lookalikes: Some lettuce varieties may be similar, but they won’t have the red radish below!
Image from Garden Ally
Rutabaga
Seedling: Young rutabaga are relatively unremarkable. They have roundish leaves with slight teeth but are relatively similar to many other seedling plants.
General Structure: With kale-like curly leaves and an underground vegetable, rutabaga isn’t much to look at. Keep an eye out for the top of the vegetable itself poking through the soil.
Leaves: With long whitish stems and large, curly leaves, the top of a rutabaga can look similar to lettuce or kale. There generally will be far fewer leaves in a mature rutabaga than a plan that’s cultivated for its leaves. They closely resemble turnip as wellbut are larger and waxier.
Flowers: Bright yellow and small, on tall stalks.
Vegetables: The rutabaga itself grows below ground, but may protrude slightly above the dirt. Look for its purplish reddish hue. The bottom of the vegetable will be whitish.
Notable Characteristics:
Lookalikes: The leaves resemble kale leaves or lettuce leaves, but are much less bushy and curly. They closely resemble turnips as wellbut are larger and waxier.
Spinach
Seedling: The initial pair of leaves from a spinach plant is thin and grass-like, but quickly the seedling produces rounded leaves that look just like the baby spinach you purchase in a grocery store!
General Structure: Spinach plants look like a bunch of spinach leaves, very short and quite thick. You harvest them as soon as the leaves are big enough to eat, so there’s not much time to lose track of the plant.
Leaves: Spinach leaves are dark green, slightly rounded, and a bit glossy. The central vein is often a bit indented, giving the tips of the leaf a slightly backward curl.
Flowers: Spinach only flowers if you neglect to harvest the leaves on time. Then, it produces a tall stalk with small greenish-white flowers on it.
Vegetables: The leaves are the product when it comes to spinach!
Notable Characteristics: Look for rounded, dark green, very smooth leaves.
Lookalikes: Spinach is relatively familiar and easy to identifysince it looks exactly like what you’d buy at the store! It’s much smaller than other leafy vegetables.
Squash
Seedling: Young squash quickly start to produce the puckered, toothed leaves characteristic of the adult plant.
General Structure: Squash is notorious for “taking over” gardens. It’s got huge leaves and tends to grow as a long, wandering vine.
Leaves: Large and rough, squash leaves have toothed edges and pucker or wrinkle slightly around the veins. They are often hairy.
Flowers: Yellow or orange, fused near the base. Squash leaves are often large and soft or even floppy.
Vegetables: Squash is a variable group of plants. The gourd that’s produced can range from long and yellow to small and green. Identifying squash by its gourd is probably your best bet if you’ve forgotten which variety you planted where.
Notable Characteristics: Squash is nearly unmistakeable thanks to its huge, hairy leaves and tendency to dominate a corner of the garden patch.
Lookalikes: Since pumpkin is a type of squash, it can be a bit tricky to tell it apart. Look at the fruit the vine is producing to narrow down which type of squash you have!
Turnip
Seedling: Seedling turnips have long stems with heart-shaped leaves. They are a pale green and closely resemble radish seedlings.
General Structure: Turnip plants have long, slightly curly leaves that closely resemble rutabaga. Rutabaga grows larger and has less bright leaves, but otherwise, it can be a bit tricky to tell these plants apart.
Leaves: Large, bright green, and curly. Turnip leaves are toothed and significantly longer than they are wide, with prominent stems.
Flowers: Bright yellow, somewhat resembling a buttercup.
Vegetables: The turnip itself grows underground, but you might see its purplish top poking out. The bottom of the turnip is white. They closely resemble rutabagabut are smaller.
Notable Characteristics: The flowers are unique, but you don’t want to see them! That means your plant has “bolted.”
Lookalikes: Very similar to rutabaga, but a bit smaller and brighter colored with less waxy leaves.
Zucchini
Seedling: Young zucchini quickly starts to produce the puckered, toothed leaves characteristic of the adult plant.
General Structure: Zucchini grows as a large-leaved bushy plant that quickly takes over parts of your garden. It has slightly hairy stems and leaves.
Leaves: Large, lobed, and pointy, zucchini leaves look like monstrous maple leaves. They are quite hairy!
Flowers: Like most squash flowers, zucchini flowers are yellowish orange and soft or even floppy.
Vegetables: Zucchini looks much like cucumbers. They’re long, green, rounded, and a bit wax.
Notable Characteristics: Look for the long, narrow, green zucchini. Luckily, cucumber (a close look-alike vegetable) looks nothing like zucchini as a plant!
Lookalikes: As another member of the squash family, zucchini resembles squash in most ways. It’s best to identify based on the vegetable produced.
