Vegan

I only have a balcony, but you can already grow some things with a small raised bed.

As others said, tomatoes work great (if there's enough sunlight), especially on balconies, as tomatoes don't handle rain too well often.

I had some good results with green beans (special cultivars for pots), salads, herbs (like basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary) and cabbages, but there are cabbage butterflies that really love to eat them (and a lot of it). But I sill had some success, especially when planting pak-choi in fall and harvesting it in early winter.

If there’s one variety of tomato I can recommend, it’s Cherokee purple. I swear to god I didn’t know before stumbling across it that tomatoes could be so good you could just pluck it off the vine and eat it like an apple. You will not regret it

Plants are not so hard to grow, so don't be intimidated!! Growing them well is a different story, but practice makes perfect and gardening is a fun hobby.

I'd look into what is grown locally and start there, but personally I grow my own tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplants, zucchini and a smattering of herbs. Peppers and herbs are easy to pot, so you can move them indoors over the winter, tomatoes I haven't had as much luck with, but we have phenomenal soil for tomatoes here so my tomato plants become absolutely massive and growing them in pots would be cumbersome.

Keeping critters away is a challenge, but I found hanging CDs helps with birds and spraying wolf urine around the garden helps with the deer and squirrels. The squirrels are just hungry bastards, though, and I always lose some tomatoes and zucchini to them, but I make more than I can use so it's largely fine.

If you do end up doing tomatoes and zucchini, tips for both during harvest season. Learn a good sauce recipe and get big jars in advance. Make gallons of it. Zucchini are most flavorful when they're smaller, so pick them when they're smaller, but if one stays hidden for too long and ends up as big as your forearm, turn it into bread.

If you keep compost, it's great to mix into your soil at the start of the season and rotate what is planted where to get better results each year.

Tomatoes are my #1 pick. They're just so much better than store bought. Most other produce doesn't have nearly the same quality gap.

Otherwise it's mianly for convenience and sustainability. I'll be doing mostly lettuce and herbs this year I think. Lots of basil, and dill then some thyme and rosemary as well.

Dill and chives is easy.

Cherry tomatoes and chilli peppers as well.

I am currently trying to growing ginger, but that needs a somewhat warmer climate.

The chinese cabbage that I planted in the autuum is also still growing well in the small greenhouse I build.

Generally speaking you want to have a small greenhouse in a temperate climate so that you can start planting a bit earlier.