my gardening knowledge is planting magic trees in old school runescape it seems like an enjoyable hobby though honestly i might get into it cuz of you croye not a garden but maybe some plants could be fun reccomend any beginner plants? Honestly cactus seem pretty cool
Before reccomending any plants, I'll reccomend you Stardew Valley you might enjoy it ^^
For plant you're totally right cactus is a good start as it is fairly self-sufficent, requiring very little water and -at least for smaller ones- very little space. I'd also reccomend you mint / peppermint (highly reccomend peppermint if you can find some, it smells amazing). The nice thing about mint is, although it does require a bit more space, you can basically put a root with two leaves on it inside a pot and it will grow like crazy. It's also very nice for cooking -a few leaves in some rice and you've got yourself an entierly different dish).
Just be careful to give it both enough sunlight and water but even if you were to forget it for a whole month that plant is unkillable. Even if all plants seem dead others can grow from just the root at a stupidly fast rate.
Also it smells incredibly good.
Chives are a good one as well. A round pot around 10-15 cm deep (4-6 inches) and 20 cm diameter (8 inches) is enough for it. It is also fairly resilient so that's a nice bonus. It spreads too although a bit slower and like mint and cactus (at least the cactus species I'm familiar with) once planted it'll regrow by itself every year. For it to happen though you'll have to wait for the flower to blossom (a nice looking round purple flower might I add) and seeds will plant themselves.
This plant is a bit more sensible to the acidity/composition of the ground so if it does not regrow/withers away, it might be the soil/compost. Just buy some from a store that has some and it should do the trick. If you try to do your own compost maybe don't put it on this plant.
Btw I don't know if you're familiar with it but it has a taste fairly similar to garlic -although much less pronounced- and goes wonderfully with eggs and fresh cheese (I put it everywhere though so try it out and see what you enjoy ^^)
Tbh most aromatic plants are fairly easy to produce, be that from a smaller plant or from seed (the seeds can be harder to find though) and have the benefit of being -mostly- small enough to not become too much of an hindrance in smaller spaces and are both pleasing to the eye/nose and edible.
Some examples : basil, parsley (both incredible with tomatoes), sage, coriander, tarragon (this one has a bit of a polarizing taste, I personnaly make alcohol out of it because of its medicinal properties), thyme (enjoys a big pot) or even rosemary and a whole bunch more but the list is already long enough.
Then there's flowers. I personnaly love flowers. While some are edible, most are not too great to eat and some are straight up only gonna bring negative effects (not too severe but still unenjoyable) if you eat them but hey, they're too pretty to eat.
Some easy ones (don't know the english term of most of them, hard to find sorry) are marigold/calendula (rather small too), carnation, maybe geraniums (a bit bigger and I couldn't tell you how easy they are from the seed as I've never planted one from the seed), ophyrs or chamomile.
Again, there's a lot of possibilities there so if you want to give it a go I'd suggest taking the time to look at a bunch of them but don't worry, you'll always discover more.
Then for plants that are mainly used for the edible component of them, while I'd say lettuce is a must to try, it isn't very space efficient so if you don't have a lot of space, you prolly shouldn't or at least not more than maybe one or two to try. If you want to try though use several seeds as unless you use the coated ones (which are mostly used by professionals so you most likely won't find them easily) they don't have anywhere near 100% guarantee to grwo from one seed only.
The best ones for smaller spaces are probably tomatoes (cherry tomato is king/queen here), pepper/chili, maybe eggplant, maybe beet, spinach/chard and if you feel brave, beans (needs a lot of water).
Avoid any kind of marrow as they need to spread
a lot.
So yeah, sorry for the loooong answer, short answer would be : try aromatic plants first, highly reccomend mint and chives for they self-sustainability that make them very beginner-friendly and their wide range of uses.
