A singular noun becomes it when referred to by a pronoun; a plural noun becomes they. I am sure you know this, but it is the only grammatical point your question raises.
More interesting is why some apparently plural nouns are in fact singular. Vegetables is normally plural (lunch may include two vegetables, and you eat them without worrying about the fact that one is a single potato, while the other is four carrots), although if the canteen gives you unidentified 'vegetables' by the spoonful, you eat it. So your second sentence should certainly contain they.
The first sentence should equally clearly contain it, to agree with something; equally clearly it sounds odd. This is because your choice of words was slightly odd to begin with. If your grandmother planted 'something' it would normally be a single plant; if she had six bushes to put in, she would plant some things. (You can certainly turn it over to lawn, in which case you put in grass or clover in the singular; but you don't plant a crop like that, you sow it.) So by saying "She planted something", you are implying that it was (in this case) a patch of cucumbers rather than twelve individual seeds.
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